TOMMY 

CAFTERET 

JUSTUS MILES 









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TOMMY CARTERET 


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TOMMY CARTERET 


A NOVEL 


By 

JUSTUS MILES FORMAN 


Illustrations in Color 
by H. H. Foley 



NEW YORK 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 




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CONTENTS— 




BOOK III. 

That Which Followed Tommy 


CHAPTER 

XVI. 

Mariana Keeps Her Word 

PAGE 

227 

XVII. 

Sibyl Buckles on Her Armour 

242 

XVIII. 

In the Rose-Gardens 

254 

XIX. 

Those Moving Eyes of 



Tommy’s .... 

268 

XX. 

What Tommy Dreaded 

0 

CO 

C) 

XXL 

“ Brig o’ Dread ” 

2S9 

XXII. 

Old Tommy Does What He 



Can 

297 

XXIII. 

I Come Between When Ye 



Laugh and Lean 

3'9 

XXIV. 

Tommy Comes to the River’s 



Brink ..... 

319 

XXV. 

Jimmy and I Make a Journey 

325 

XXVI. 

Mariana Says Good-bye 

337 


Envoy ..... 

345 



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CHAPTER I 


The Two Tommies 

I FIND nothing dull, Henry,’’ said Miss Vyse, ‘4n 
watching these young people enjoy themselves 
while I sit by inactive. I like to watch their 
little ways. They do not change greatly — the ways, 
I mean. They were the same when we were employing 
them. The way of a man with a maid! Who was it 
said that was one of the three indefinables ? It seems to 
me very simple and unvarying. It is a game with rules.” 

Major Winfield leaned back in his arm-chair with a 
little chuckle, and he put the finger-tips of his two 
hands neatly together, nodding his white head. 

“Quite right, Sophia!” said he. “It is only when 
you replace the maid that the rules are torn up. The 
way of a man with a woman ! Aye, that’s one of the 
indefinables if you like! Is it not so, Arabella?” he 
asked, turning to the other woman, a handsome old 
woman with a high nose and arched eyebrows and 
pretty pink cheeks. 

“Eh, what, what?” said Mrs. Crowley, starting from 
her doze. “Who said I was nodding?” she demanded 
truculently. “I was not. I was immersed in thought. 
You were always so sudden, Henry! I should have 
married you if you had not burst upon me like a — a 
bomb-shell with your proposal. What were you and 
Sophia talking about ? — some poor soul’s lack of 
character. I’ll wager.” 


3 


4 


TOMMY CARTERET 


‘‘You are very unkind, Arabella!’’ said Miss Vyse 
in a hurt tone. “I never gossip, never! As you knoWy 
Arabella! We were speaking of the dancers.” 

“Well, I hope you found something pleasant to say 
about them,” said Mrs. Crowley. “/ shouldn’t. 
Heaven be praised that we had no such vulgar exhibi- 
tions in our day, my dear. Dancing was an art, then. 
It taught young people to move gracefully. Does 
this? Look at that puppy dancing with my niece 
Sibyl Eliot! He is holding her right hand straight up 
in the air over his head as if he were trying to reach 
the chandelier. What should we, in our day, have 
thought of clasping each other tightly to our bosoms 
and sliding about the floor in this sickeningly languid 
fashion? I tell you this modern American dancing 
should be checked by law!” 

“ ‘ American ’ ? ” criticised Miss Vyse weakly. 

“ Certainly, American ! ” said the other woman. “ Do 
English people dance like this? Not at all! French? 
German ? Not at all, my dear. It is purely American. 
I say it with all proper shame. Ah, there is that pretty 
little Mrs. Hartwell!” 

“Poor dear!” interrupted Miss Vyse, shaking a 
melancholy head. The other woman looked up 
quickly. 

“What do you mean?” she demanded. “Why do 
you say ‘poor dear’?” 

“I do not think she is happy with her husband,” 
said old Miss Vyse. 

“Sophia,” said Mrs. Crowley, “I am not, as a rule, 
a gossip or a scandal-monger, but in this case I must 
ask you to explain. I have a reason for wishing to 
know.” 

“But, my dear!” protested Miss Vyse, “I have 


THE TWO TOMMIES 


5 


nothing to tell. I know nothing about her. I called 
upon Mrs. Hartwell the other day, and somehow we 
fell to talking upon serious topics, and quite suddenly 
she burst into tears, saying that she was very unhappy 
and giving me a vague impression that her husband did 
not understand her.” 

seem to have heard that sentiment before,” ob- 
served Major Winfield from the depths of his arm- 
chair; but Mrs. Crowley held up a hand to stop him. 

‘‘Yes? Yes?” she said. “Go on! What then? 
Her husband did not understand her, but some one else 
did.” 

“Oh!” objected Miss Vyse. “I do not think Mrs. 
Hartwell went quite so far as to say that, though I 
gathered — well, I judged that her husband was not 
quite all her trouble.” 

“One’s husband so seldom is!” nodded Major 
Winfield. 

“Be quiet, Henry!” said Mrs. Crowley. “And 
what then, Sophia?” 

“Why — ^that was all,” said the harassed Miss Vyse. 
“That was quite all. She told me nothing definite, 
you understand. Yes, that was all. Tommy Carteret 
— old Tommy — came in just then, and I went away.” 

“A-a-ah!” said Mrs. Crowley slowly, and she stared 
out across the room for a long time quite silent. 

“I thought so!” she said at last, as if to herself. 

“What was it you thought, Arabella?” inquired 
Miss Vyse politely. 

“Nothing, my dear, nothing!” said the other woman. 
“Did I speak? Nothing at all.” 

Devereux, their host, came hurrying past just then, 
and paused a moment, smiling hospitably. 

“Ah, the three cronies!” he said with a little laugh. 


6 


TOMMY CARTERET 


Helen told me you were here, all of you, but I’ve 
not yet had a chance to hunt you up. Helen keeps 
one so hard at it looking after these young girls who 
aren’t properly being looked after by other men. I 
don’t like giving parties. It is a great bore. Now, if 
this were some other chap’s party I might be sitting 
here at peace talking to you instead of telling unat- 
tractive school-girls one by one that they’re making the 
hit of the season. By the way, Mrs. Crowley, I have 
my eye on a jade snuff-bottle — I’m not saying where 
it’s to be found — which I am going to buy to-morrow. 
You will turn green with envy when you see it.” 

Mrs. Crowley emitted a pleased little cackle. 

‘‘Yes, I know,” she said. “I bought it this morning, 
at Yamanahka’s. They told me you had been ad- 
miring it. It will be my finest, I think.” 

“You — ^bought it!” cried the outraged Devereux. 
“Well, I call that low, low! From this time on all is 
over between us. I feel a sudden dislike for you.” He 
broke off, looking toward the door of the ball-room. 

“Ah, there come Tommy Carteret and his father!” 
he said. “I must speak to Tommy about a horse.” 
He looked back threateningly at the delighted Mrs. 
Crowley. 

“I shall be even with you, yet, in the matter of 
that snuff-bottle,” he said. “The blow is too great to 
suffer in silence.” 

Major Winfield laughed gently as the other man 
hastened away, and he turned his head to look toward 
the door where the two late comers stood, searching 
the room for their hostess. 

“‘Tommy Carteret and his father,”’ he repeated. 
“Why does every one instinctively say that — every one, 
that is, save us oldsters who have known old Tommy 


THE TWO TOMMIES 


7 


all our lives? Why not ‘Tommy Carteret and his 
son’?’’ 

“The reason is not so far to seek, I should think,” 
said Mrs. Crowley, watching the three men by the door- 
way. “Young Tommy’s a man — or has all the ingre- 
dients of one, waiting for the final combination. Oh, 
yes, very much a man! Young Tommy will do some- 
thing extraordinarily big and fine, one day. You 
watch! Old Tommy is — Ah, well, old Tommy is 
Tommy. You know.” 

“And yet, Arabella — ” said Major Winfield from 
the depths of his chair, and, with the words, went a 
little half-chuckle which brought a flush to the old 
woman’s face. “And yet ” 

“Oh, yes!” said old Mrs. Crowley quite simply, “I 
loved him. All of us did, I fancy. I’m not certain 
that I don’t love him now, in a sort of withered rose- 
leaf fashion. I came very near marrying him, once, 
nearer than I came to marrying you, Henry.” 

“I wonder,” said little Miss Vyse with a tremulous 
smile at the corners of her faded lips, “I wonder how 
many women, old and young, have little keepsakes — 
little souvenirs — recalling Tommy Carteret, hidden 
somewhere away in their inmost treasuries ? ” 

“And their inmost hearts,” nodded Major Winfield 
soberly. 

“More than one cares to think of, my dear,” said 
Mrs. Crowley, and her eyes still clung to the old 
beau who lounged gracefully by the doorway 
of the ball-room chatting with his son and with 
his host. 

“There is something,” she said after a pause, “very 
appealing about Tommy — old Tommy, something that 
no woman can resist. I say ‘ woman ’ for I think he was 


8 


TOMMY CARTERET 


never a man’s man. Am I right, Henry?” Major 
Winfield nodded from his chair. 

“A bit — weak,” he said. 

‘^Exactly that!” said the woman. ‘‘Weak. There 
is a prevalent notion that women are attracted by 
strong men. I am an old woman, and I have kept my 
eyes open. I know better. Strong men may inspire a 
sort of passion in women, and undoubtedly they inspire 
admiration, but it is the man who is, as Henry says, a 
bit weak — with a certain sweet appealing weakness — 
whom a woman most instinctively loves. It is the 
maternal in us. We want to mother such a man. 
He tells each of us that she alone, out of all the world, 
really understands him, and we believe the wretch. 
Oh, yes. Tommy is the sort we pour out our tenderness 
upon — we fools!” 

“I wonder,” said Major Winfield speculatively, 
“who is pouring out her tenderness upon Tommy at 
present.” 

“Oh!” said little MissVyse in a half-shocked tone, 
“Oh, no one, I think! I think Tommy has given up 
all that — that sort of thing, long since. Of course, 
every one likes him, and he goes everywhere, but I 
fancy he thinks it time to look back upon his love- 
affairs like the rest of us, Henry.” 

But Major Winfield’s gaze was fixed upon the face 
of the other woman, and it seemed as if he persisted in 
directing his question to her. Mrs. Crowley’s eyes 
at length met his, but they were quite blank and ex- 
pressionless. 

“I should think that what Sophia says is perfectly 
true,” she said, and her voice was as expressionless as 
her eyes. 

“Quite so!” murmured the man. “Quite so!” 


THE TWO TOMMIES 


9 


“Do you know,’' continued Miss Vyse gently, 
“I have often wondered why Tommy married 
Adela Staunton. They seemed to me hardly — 
congenial. Yes, that is the word, I think, hardly 
congenial.” 

“He didn’t marry her,” said the other woman with a 
hint of sharpness. “ She married him. Adela Staunton 
was a very managing woman — ^just the woman for 
Tommy to marry. She managed him admirably 
while she lived. Young Tommy owes most of his 
good qualities to her, and he has more good qualities 
than any other boy I know. I am going to marry him 
to my niece Sibyl Eliot.” 

“The contracting parties being willing?” queried 
Major Winfield. 

“The contracting parties are just beginning to take 
notice. I must see that Tommy has a half-hour with 
her this evening. She is looking well. He has been 
in London for the past two months, and Sibyl should 
appeal to him after those English girls — even if they 
are better bred than ours.” 

“Old Tommy is coming here to speak to us,” said 
Miss Vyse suddenly, and sat up in her chair with a 
quick breath. 

The man they had been discussing left the two by 
the doorway, and came directly across to the corner 
where his three old friends sat. He did not walk like 
a man past fifty, but with a certain easy grace, a certain 
jaunty youthfulness. And, in spite of his white hair 
and the little white moustache turned sharply up at 
the points, his face was young also. Age had touched 
him lightly. He had always been an unusually hand- 
some man with that extreme physical beauty which is 
commonly accompanied by a certain weakness of char- 


10 


TOMMY CARTERET 


acter and by rather moderate mental gifts — Providence 
is seldom sweepingly generous — and this beauty he 
had preserved with as much care as any woman — albeit 
he was not a vain man as men go. 

“The three cronies!” he said, as Devereux had said 
before him, but with a little, pleased affectionate laugh 
which was quite his own. “ Eve not seen you, Arabella, 
nor you, Henry, for half a moon. I did see you, 
Sophia, the other day at the Hart — I forget at whose 
house, but you despicably got up and went away as 
soon as I arrived. That was not nice of you, Sophia. 
I went home and wept.” He laughed again, half 
mockingly, looking into their three faces, and it was 
easy to see how old Tommy Carteret had been enabled 
to walk down lifers lane upon a red carpet of women’s 
hearts. Something lovable breathed from him, some- 
thing very sweet and boyish and, as Mrs. Crowley had 
said, appealing. A few people have always about them, 
in great store, that wholly indescribable quality which, 
for want of a word, we call personal magnetism. Old 
Tommy Carteret had more than his share of it — far 
more. 

The orchestra from its balcony at the far end of the 
room began to play an old-time waltz, a quaint old 
forgotten old tune of thirty years gone by. Tommy 
Carteret straightened suddenly, and his eyes caught 
Mrs. Crowley’s eyes and held them. 

“Our waltz, Arabella!” said old Tommy Carteret. 
“As God lives, our waltz! Come, we must dance it 
once more. What are you waiting for? Come!” 

Mrs. Crowley rose slowly to her feet, and her cheeks 
were pink. 

“I am an old woman. Tommy,” said she, “and part 
of the time I walk with a stick, but that is our waltz, 


THE TWO TOMMIES 


11 


and I will try. No one shall ever say that Arabella 
Crowley did not try.^’ 

She tried, and it was no mean attempt, but after a 
few turns she came to a ponderous halt outside the 
circle of dancers. 

‘‘No, Tommy,’’ said she between a laugh and a 
groan, “ no, it is thirty years too late, and I carry thirty 
pounds too much about with me. I’m afraid we cannot 
manage.” 

“Nonsense, Arabella!” said the old beau. “You 
dance like a flower in the breeze — as you always did. 
Who should remember if not I ? In a moment the 
step will come to you.” 

“Ah, Tommy,” said the woman, “you are a dear 
lad! You flatter like — like yourself. Tommy. Who 
should remember if not I? But my poor old knees 
are knocking together, and my rheumatism is the devil, 
to-night. How the ills of the flesh stand away from 
you, lad! The gods have loved you well — the gods 
and some others. Come! there is a little cushioned 
alcove yonder to the left. Come and talk to me. We 
see so little of you in these years, we who have grown 
old while you stood still! We’ve had to make way 
for the young and pretty ones. You’ve always de- 
manded beauty, have you not, Tommy? — and got it.” 

But as they turned they came face to face with two 
people who were walking slowly down one side of the 
ball-room, and Arabella Crowley felt the man’s arm 
stiffen and twitch under her hand. The two people 
were the pretty little Mrs. Hartwell and her husband, a 
square man with high, wide shoulders and a square 
face and a projecting under lip. The habitual and 
deeply scored creases in his forehead had formed an 
indented cross exactly in the centre of it. People who 


12 


TOMMY CARTERET 


forgot his name always spoke of him as the man with 
the cross on his forehead. 

Little Mrs. Hartwell made as if she would pass on 
with only a faint smile of greeting, but her husband 
halted to speak to Mrs. Crowley, whom he liked for a 
certain trenchant and uncompromising habit of speech 
which she had. She was at times a rather fierce old 
woman, and, as Hartwell had once said to Major Win- 
field, her mental processes were distinctly those of a 
man, though she was by no means masculine in appear- 
ance or manner. 

“I hear you cut in ahead of Devereux in the purchase 
of a jade snuff-bottle,’’ he said. ‘T was glad to hear it. 
It’ll teach him not to vacillate the next time he sees 
something he likes. Devereux’s quite low in his 
mind about it. You must show me the bottle, one 
day. I’ve a few good bits of jade myself.” 

Mrs. Crowley smiled civilly, and made some sort of 
mechanical response, but she was not listening. She 
was watching little Mrs. Hartwell and old Tommy 
Carteret. She had, in the beginning, noted the other 
woman’s evident desire to avoid speaking, and she 
noted, further, that her manner in greeting Carteret 
was not at all that of an ordinary acquaintance; that 
she did not politely smile and say she was glad to see 
him, or utter any other conventional phrase, but only 
looked steadily up into his face for some time, quite silent, 
with wide, grave eyes. Then Hartwell turned to the 
elder man and shook his hand cordially. 

“What has become of you, of late?” he demanded. 
“ We see nothing of you at our house, any more. That’s 
not doing quite the right thing by us, is it? We rely 
upon you young men to keep us abreast of the world, 
socially.” He paused a moment to laugh at his silly 


THE TWO TOMMIES 


13 


little witticism, and Mrs. Crowley saw something 
shift and darken in Anne Hartwell’s eyes, and saw 
the corners of old Tommy Carteret’s mouth twitch in 
a peculiar fashion which she had known well. The 
peculiar twitch meant that old Tommy was engaged 
in villainy, and that he was finding himself extremely 
successful. In a less handsome man, it must have been 
called a smirk. 

‘H’m a good bit of a hermit, these days,” he said 
with his apologetic, engaging smile. I find it hard to 
tear myself away from my book and my pipe. I’m 
afraid I’m growing old.” 

Tommy Carteret with a book and a pipe! Mrs. 
Crowley heard the younger woman make a sudden 
smothered gasp, and she frowned instinctively as at a 
card badly played. Tommy always would embroider 
too much. He would never let success alone. 

^‘Well,” said Hartwell, “you must make an excep- 
tion in our case. We’re too old friends to be neglected 
so. Good night! Yes, we’re off. Anne is not feeling 
her best, so I shall drop her at home and go on to my 
club. I’ve a committee meeting which will keep me 
for two or three hours. Good night! Congratulations 
again over the snuff-bottle, Mrs. Crowley.” 

But again Arabella Crowley did not listen; she 
watched the other two people, and thought she saw 
Tommy Carteret’s eyebrows rise slightly and little Anne 
Hartwell make something like the shadow of a nod. 

Then, when the Hartwells had gone, she pressed old 
Tommy onward toward the little draped and cushioned 
alcove beyond, and having at last cornered him, as it 
were, sat herself down to do battle. 

“That is a very pretty little woman,” she began, 
“that Mrs. Hartwell. I knew her mother.” 


14 


TOMMY CARTERET 


Yes ?” said old Tommy politely. He had the air of 
one absorbed in thought but determined to be civil. 

'^Very pretty/’ said she, “and, as is often the case, 
unhappy.” 

Old Tommy looked up swiftly with an involuntary 
twitching of the hands. His face he had long since 
schooled to immobility. 

“I don’t think I — quite understand, my dear,” said 
he. “Mrs. Hartwell unhappy? Dear me, that is 
very, very sad! Such a charming little woman, too. 
She has been — er, confiding in you, I take it?” And 
for just an instant a gleam of interest escaped repression 
in old Tommy’s eye, and one hand, because it might 
not be still, fumbled at his waistcoat. 

“Oh, dear me, no!” said Arabella Crowley and, with 
a sort of bitter amusement, watched the man’s deep 
breath of relief. “ Oh, no! I hardly know her. But an 
old woman. Tommy, has eyes all round and round 
her head — eyes within and without like the biblical 
creature, I forget what its name was, and she sees 
things go on. I’ve watched and I’m sorry for that poor 
little woman. I’m sorry for everybody concerned, 
because, one day, there will be a very bad smash-up. 
I know Hartwell. He’s a hard man. Tommy, hard as 
nails. And I know what sort of woman the little wife 
is — I know her type. It’s the tragic type. She has no 
sense of humour. Oh, yes! there will be a very bad 
smash-up, one day.” 

Old Tommy Carteret shifted uneasily in his seat. 

“ But, my dear Arabella,” he said after a short pause, 
“you speak in parables. This all sounds very serious 
and melodramatic, but you forget that you have not 
told me the source of Mrs. Hartwell’s unhappiness. 
I am rather at a loss.” 


THE TWO TOMMIES 


15 


“Oh, it’s another man!” said she. “Didn’t I say 
that? It’s another man who has convinced the poor 
little fool that her husband — who is a good sort in his 
way, though hard — does not understand or appreciate 
her, but that he himself does. It is quite the common 
old story, you see. So few of us have any true inventive 
power.” 

Old Tommy Carteret stared frowning out over the 
lighted ball-room, and that restless hand ever fumbled 
at the buttons of his waistcoat. 

“How do you — know all this?” he asked presently. 
“You say Mrs. Hartwell has not been confiding in you.” 

“Oh, I have my ways. Tommy! ” nodded the woman. 
“I have my devious ways.” And Tommy Carteret, 
who was beginning to enjoy himself, now that there 
seemed no pitfalls in the way, sat back among his 
cushions and laughed a pleased little chuckling laugh. 

“The old Arabella!” he said laughing. “Oh, my 
dear, my dear!” 

“Yes, Tommy,” she sighed. “Three and fifty, but 
it is unkind of you to drag it out into the light.” 

“You’re wilfully misunderstanding,” he said re- 
proachfully. “I didn’t mean ‘old’ in that sense. I 
mean the old Arabella in the sense of the Arabella who 
used to — used to dance with me, and ride with me, and 
sit with me in a certain rose arbour that I shall never 
forget, and — and — Dear child, do you remember a 
pink-sprigged muslin frock with apple-green ribbons? 
Do you? Tell the truth! I was thinking of it 
and of a number of things it brought to mind, only 
last night.” 

Arabella Crowley shook her white head. 

“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. Tommy,” said she. 
“That’s beside the question. I can think, just now. 


16 


TOMMY CARTERET 


of nothing but that poor, little pretty Hartwell woman 
who's on the high-road to so much trouble. Her 
face haunts me." She leaned confidentially toward her 
vis-d-vis and lowered her voice a bit as if she were 
afraid of being overheard. 

‘T wish, Tommy," she said, “that I had that man 
here, now, where you are sitting, that man who is 
dragging Anne Hartwell into danger." And again, 
with a sort of bitter amusement, she watched the sudden 
strain which old Tommy put upon himself to remain 
immobile. “I'd so like to warn him!" 

“Ah!" said Carteret easily. “Little Mrs. Hartwell 
has a friend in you, I see." 

“No — no," she hesitated. “No, I think it is hardly 
that. I doubt whether I feel much personal interest in 
Anne Hartwell. It's only — only that the thing seems 
such a mistake. This man can't know. He can't have 
realised what a mistake it is. There are women who 
are as naturally and safely intrigante as if that sort of 
thing were a profession with them. Anne Hartwell, as 
I've said before, is fatally different. She is naturally 
puritan. She'll make a hideous tragedy out of this 
affair, and her husband will aid and abet her. Oh, 
the man canH realise what he's getting into! There 
are so many other women about. Why doesn't he 
choose one of the others ? I'm afraid for him. Tommy. 
I'm afraid for both of them." 

But once more Tommy Carteret sat back among his 
cushions and laughed. 

“What a Cassandra it is, to-night, my dear!" he 
mocked. “Come, come, Arabella! You're taking it 
all much too seriously. I dare say there's no such 
affair as you hint at. I dare say your little Mrs. Hart- 
well has a headache and therefore looks sad, and 


THE TWO TOMMIES 


17 


straightway you manufacture tragedies for her. For 
shame, Arabella!^’ 

Old Mrs. Crowley drew a little sigh, shaking her 
head slowly, and for a space she was silent. Then — 
“I should like to have warned him,” she said, and was 
silent again. 

Then presently Tommy Carteret rose to his feet. 
He was half frowning — a petulant, boyish frown — half 
laughing. His face was the face of a spoiled child, 
chidden but wilful still, and somehow lovable in its 
very wilfulness. 

Shall I take you back to the others, Arabella, dear ? ” 
he asked. ‘T am sorry, but I must be leaving early. 
I — have a man to see at my club.” 

Arabella Crowley rose beside him white-faced, and 
caught swiftly at his arm with a shaking hand. 

‘‘Ah, no, no. Tommy! No!” she cried in a whisper. 
“You mustn’t go! I’m — I’m afraid. Tommy. Don’t 
go this time. My old bones presage danger — disaster. 
Tommy, I’ve — loved you well and been a good — friend 
to you. Don’t go to-night.” 

The masks were off. Old Tommy Carteret drew a 
long breath, looking into the woman’s eyes, and, for 
a moment, something like fear came over him; but in 
another moment he laughed again. 

“Cassandra, Cassandra!” said he. “Dear, dear 
Cassandra! ” And it was still the spoiled child, chidden 
but wilful, and somehow lovable in its wilfulness. He 
led her back across the ball-room to where little Miss 
Vyse and Major Winfield still sat in their corner, and 
in all the way she spoke but once. 

“ ‘ Whom the gods would destroy,’ Tommy,” she said, 
“ ‘ they first make mad.’ ” But it is doubtful whether old 
Tommy Carteret even heard her. There was a little, 


18 


TOMMY CAllTERET 


twitching, absent smile beginning to grow at the 
corners of his lips, and, as he bowed his farewells and 
moved toward the door of the ball-room it seemed as 
if his buoyant walk had taken on an extra youthfulness. 


CHAPTER II 


Sibyl 

Now, when old Tommy Carteret left his host near 
the door of the ball-room and crossed to the far corner 
where his three old friends were seated, young Tommy 
also parted with that busy and harassed gentleman 
and, steering a course opposite to that pursued by his 
sire, embarked upon a quest of his own. 

Young Tommy was considered good to look upon. 
He had little or none of his father’s extraordinary 
personal beauty, but his appearance left no doubt of 
the fact that he was, as Arabella Crowley had said, a 
TTian. He had the advantage over old Tommy of 
something more than an inch in height, being quite six 
feet in his shoes, and he walked and moved with that 
curious swinging half-swagger which is common to all 
men who are athletes. Old Tommy had dispropor- 
tionately large, dark, and appealing eyes. Young 
Tommy’s eyes were neither large nor dark, but a very 
keen grey, deep-set under straight brows, and oddly 
steady for one of his years. No one up to this time had 
ever spoken of them as appealing. 

He had a good nose, larger by quite a bit than old 
Tommy’s, and beaked, whereas old Tommy’s was 
straight and Greek. And further, he had a square, jut- 
ting chin — his mother’s chin — under a mouth curiously 
at variance with it. In repose he looked a rather stern 
and uncompromising young man, but when he spoke 
19 


20 


TOMMY CARTERET 


or smiled all his face warmed and softened and relaxed, 
and became oddly lovable. It was his one outward 
likeness to his father — that and the voice. They had 
voices amazingly alike. 

He skirted one side of the ball-room, keeping close 
to the wall, out of the way of the dancers, for a waltz was 
in progress, and looking intently over the heads of the 
crowd for a certain head which he knew must be 
flamingly conspicuous by reason of the colour God 
had given it. He found the head almost at once, his 
good angel being for the moment in attendance, and, 
a lane chancing to open through the crush just then, 
the girl to whom the flaming head belonged caught 
sight of young Tommy almost at the same instant, and 
gave him a vigorous nod of surprise and pleasure, and 
waved the hand which lay on her partner’s shoulder. 
Then, after a moment, young Tommy saw her speak 
to the man with whom she was dancing, and the two 
came across the room to him, dodging, as best they 
might, the dancers who swung across their way. 

“Tommy!” said the girl, and seized both of young 
Tommy’s hands in hers. “Tommy! but I’m glad to 
see you! I didn’t know you’d returned. I thought 
you were still in London. I was asking Jimmy Rogers 
about you, only this evening. He said he’d had a letter 
from you, and that you had decided to marry a flower- 
girl whom you had met in Piccadilly Circus, and 
settle down to a country life in Grosvenor Square.” 

“Isn’t Jimmy a beautiful liar?” said young Tommy, 
full of respectful admiration. “Fancy thinking that 
all out yourself! I got in only two days ago, on the 
Deutschland f or I should have looked you up, Sibyl, 
before now. I was hoping you’d be here. I say, may 
I have the next dance?” 


SIBYL 


21 


Miss Eliot made a face. 

“Oh, it’s gone!” she said. “Some creature has it. 
But I’ll tell you, Tommy! You dash up the moment 
this dance is finished, and I’ll run away with you. 
We’ll escape the creature.” 

“Hooray!” said young Tommy. “Sibyl, you’re a 
sport! I know the very place to go. It’s on one of 
the Lombard lakes. There’s an island there ” 

“Now, look here!” said the other man. “I refuse 
to be a party to this. Tommy, you have no morals 
at all, and Sibyl hasn’t either. I’m ashamed of you.” 

“Oh, well, then,” said Miss Eliot, “we won’t go to 
Tommy’s island! I didn’t mean just that sort of run- 
ning away. Tommy, though I’m not saying that it 
hasn’t its points. We’ll go up on the roof-garden 
thing. There is one, you know. The stair is on the 
balcony outside the long open windows yonder. Be 
waiting for me near that window. Tommy, and we’ll 
make a dash for life. My keeper? Oh, she won’t 
mind! I’m not in charge of Aunt Arabella Crowley. 
I’m with the Harrisons.” 

She whirled off again with a parting wave of her 
hand, and young Tommy Carteret made his way 
slowly round the room to the row of French windows 
which opened upon a long flower-banked balcony. 
As he went, and as he stood waiting beside one of the 
open windows, he was vaguely conscious of a very 
pleasant, and rather novel, inward excitement, a sort 
of eager, expectant thrill quite beyond his natural 
content at being once more at home, among the good 
home things and home people. He realised that he 
was much more pleased to see Sibyl Eliot again than 
he could have expected to be. The first sight of her 
red hair, whirling about among the crowd of dancers. 


22 


TOMMY CARTERET 


had come to him with a queer little shock, which some- 
what astonished him now that he had time to think 
it over. 

''Sib's a dear old girl!" he said to himself, smiling 
out over the moving throng. But that didn't seem 
quite to express it, and, although young Tommy was 
a lad not in the least given to introspection, he began 
a half-puzzled self-examination by way of finding out 
just what Sib was. 

He had always taken her so much for granted. She 
had always been such an extraordinarily satisfactory 
pal, easy enough to leave, but delightful to come back 
to. He and she had had so many magnificent larks 
together. Now, suddenly, for some unknown reason, 
the situation had quite altered, and young Tommy 
rather resented it, albeit conscious of that very pleas- 
ant and rather novel inward excitement. 

. The waltz ceased, there was a near-by flurry of 
petticoats, and a young person with red hair pounced 
violently upon Tommy Carteret and dragged him 
through the nearest window, out upon the flower- 
banked balcony. 

"Now," said Miss Eliot, when they were hidden 
in the gloom, "we're safe. The creature will never 
find us. Let's go up top. There's more room. Here 
is the stair, to the left. Up with you." 

Now the Devereuxs, finding themselves, a few years 
before this, saddled with a flat-roofed, battlemented 
atrocity of an imitation gothic castle, had wisely made 
good out of evil by turning this flat roof into a garden, 
and projecting from the rear windows of the ball-room, 
on the top story, a broad balcony, from which a bit 
of a stair led up to the house-top. There were palms 
and magnolias and bays and many sorts of potted 


SIBYL 


23 


plants set about to make as many secluded nooks as 
possible, and the place was dimly lighted by orange- 
coloured paper lanterns. The out-of-door garden 
illusion was further maintained by the trees of the park 
across the avenue. 

“Not bad, Tommy!” said Miss Eliot. “What?” 

“Not in the least bad!” said young Tommy 
Carteret. “By Jove, it^s something like!” He leaned 
his elbows upon the parapet at the front of the house 
and looked down into the asphalted stretch of the ave- 
nue below, where rubber-tyred hansoms and brough- 
ams rolled past, the hooves of their horses clicking 
sharply, and an occasional motor-car charged along, 
blaring its horn as it approached a side street. Then, 
somehow, his eyes, of their own accord, wandered 
from the street below to the girl who leaned over the 
parapet beside him, almost touching his shoulder, 
and he fell to thinking how curiously effective an orange 
light is upon red hair. It is humanly possible that 
Miss Eliot may have thought it all out before him. 

She looked up, after a little time, and met his eyes, 
and it may be that a tiny spark of that strange thing 
which had so newly come to young Tommy got from 
his eyes into hers and so downward, for, even in the 
dim half-darkness, she flushed, all at once, and looked 
away. And young Tommy caught his breath. 

“Glad to be at home again. Tommy?” she asked, 
gently, for it seemed that the younger Carteret was 
pledged to a life-long silence. 

“Glad?” said young Tommy explosively. “Glad? 
— By Jove I — I — I say, you know I’m — I’m not a bit 
clever ” 

“Oh, our modest, modest Thomas!” said Miss 
Eliot. 


24 


TOMMY CARTERET 


“And so/' said young Tommy, “I can’t say it, you 
know. What? But I am glad. I was never so glad 
in my life. I can’t see just why any silly ass wants 
to go away from his home, anyhow. Not alone, that 
is.” 

“Oh?” said Miss Eliot encouragingly. 

“Not alone, you know,” said young Tommy, and 
stuck fast again. 

“And you’re — ^you’re not going to marry the flower- 
girl from Piccadilly Circus?” she demanded. Young 
Tommy laughed. 

“Nor anybody?” 

“’Eject!” said young Tommy Carteret. 

“I mean anybody over there — any English girls?” 
corrected the examining attorney. 

“Oh, English girls be hanged!” said young Tommy 
rudely. “ I don’t want ever to see any more of them,” 
he said. “I don’t want anything, but — I don’t — I 
just want to stop here!” said he. 

The girl was standing before him, smiling up into 
his face, and young Tommy’s world began to go round 
slowly like a Catharine wheel when it starts. 

“ By Jove, Sib,” said he, “ you’re a — ^you’re a — most 
uncommon dear!” He put out his two hands and took 
her by the arms as she stood there; but, at the warm, 
soft touch, his hands dropped suddenly, and he was 
quite bereft of speech, so that he only stared with a 
little, odd nervous laugh which he could not check. 

Miss Eliot turned slowly away, and sat down upon 
a near-by bench, and Tommy Carteret managed some- 
how to drop down beside her. To his soul he was 
fiercely berating himself for a half-grown, tongue- 
tied ass, and various other things, mostly unprintable. 
But his throat was held in a mighty grip, and he could 


SIBYL 


25 


not speak in the face of this overwhelming thing which 
had come to him. You see, falling in love with people 
had happened never to come in young Tommy’s way. 
He had never been that sort. 

‘‘Well, that’s just what I — what we want you to do,” 
said the girl. “Just stop here. You’re away far too 
much. Tommy. We have you only in spots, and we 
want you all the time. You’re so very nice to play 
with!” she added hastily, lest she might have seemed 
too encouraging. 

“Oh!” said young Tommy, and there was quite a 
pause. 

“Tell me things,” said Sibyl Eliot finally. “Where 
have you been, and what have you done in all these 
three months?” 

“Oh, nothing much!” said he. He could speak 
just like a human being now on this safe ground. 
“The usual sort of thing that one does in England,” 
he said. “I wasn’t much in town, only a fortnight, 
at the last, for the theatres. There were some good 
plays, the musical ones in particular at the ‘Gaiety,’ 
and at ‘Daly’s,’ and at ‘The Prince of Wales.’ We 
shall have them here next winter, I expect. I was a 
fool to spend all those weeks in England. Think of 
where I might have been!” 

“The South?” she said. 

“Yes,” said Tommy. “Seville and Granada — 
Palermo — Capri — ^Ragusa — Oh, such a heap of places 
where it’s good to be!” 

And your island place that we were going to run 
away to, a few minutes ago!” insisted the girl. 

“Rather!” said Tommy. “It’s Isola Madre, you 
know, in Lago Maggiore.” 

“ No,” said she, shaking her head, “ there is another 


26 


TOMMY CARTERET 


one I^d rather go to — that is, if you don’t mind ? ” she 
deprecated. 

''Not at all,” said Tommy Carteret generously. 
"Not at all. Go as far as you like.” 

"Well, then. I’ll tell you,” she said. — "Isn’t it nice 
that we like our island places so. Tommy? — I’ll tell 
you about my island.” 

"Ours!” said Tommy Carteret. 

"OursI” said she. "It’s an Azore. Once when 
we were going from New York to Naples, Gib. way, — 
I was with Aunt Arabella and some people^ — we ran 
very close along the southern coast of the Azores, be- 
cause the captain’s wife, who was on board by special 
permission, had never seen them. We reached the 
first islands early one morning and passed them, and 
then, in the evening of that day — such a beautiful, 
warm spring evening. Tommy I — we steamed past 
Pico. You know, don’t you! It was on the edge 
of dark, and there were tiny, tiny points of yellow light 
that were windows, here and there, low by the shore, 
and the mountain, that beautiful wooded cone of a 
mountain, towered up, green-black, above them against 
the sky that was all streaks of crimson and orange and 
dun and black, where the sun had gone down. There 
were mists about the mountain. Tommy, clouds and 
veils of mist, blue-white, and they changed and curled 
and lifted as we slipped past. Ah, it was so unspeak- 
ably beautiful, and I’m telling it so badly! Why am 
I not a literary person who can describe things? The 
peak of the mountain was above those curling mists. 
Tommy, black against the red sky, and there was one 
tiny pin-point of yellow light there. Somebody was 
on the summit. Probably, somebody lives there. And, 
oh, I wanted to be the somebody, one of two some- 


SIBYL 


27 


bodies! If you’d been on our ship that evening I’d 
have dared you to jump overboard and swim with me 
to Pico. 

** What a life! Free and alone on a mountain-top in 
a warm southern sea. Do you get it at all? Do you 
get the gipsy feeling of it? Do I tell it so badly that 
it all sounds absurd? I’ve never forgotten that hour 
sailing past Pico. It was all my old fairy books 
brought back to me, all the silly sentimental dreams 
I’ve ever dreamed put together — ^just an island moun- 
tain, black and mist-wreathed against a red sky!” 

“Sib, Sib!” said young Tommy Carteret, and 
leaned forward and sidewise in his seat to stare into the 
girl’s face. She was breathing quickly, and her eyes 
were wide and very dark in the half-light, and her lips 
were apart in an odd little smile that Tommy did not 
know. 

“Sib!” he said again. “Why— Sib. I— didn’t 
know. I didn’t know you — cared about that — sort of 
thing. Why, Sib, we’re just a — pair of gipsies together! 
Why didn’t I know?” 

But Miss Eliot pulled herself up with a little shiver. 

“You’re hurting my hand, Tommy, dear,” she said, 
and young Tommy hastily dropped the injured mem- 
ber. He had been quite unconscious of holding it. 

“I’m a sentimental fool. Tommy,” pursued Miss 
Eliot. “I slipped into all that before I — knew. I 
sha’n’t do it again.” 

“But Sib,” said he, “I’m a sentimental fool, too. 
So why not? Let’s sneak down the back way. Sib, 
and go to Pico.” 

The girl rose, laughing a bit nervously. 

“We’ll sneak back to that ball-room at once,” she 
declared. “We’ve been too long away.” But she 


28 


TOMMY CARTERET 


turned to him once more in the light of the paper 
lanterns and looked up into his face, holding him by 
the coat. 

‘Tt’s good to have you at home again, Tommy,*’ 
she said gently. ‘‘Don’t go away again for a long 
time. We want you to play with. And — come soon 
to see me.” 

“ May I come to-morrow ? ” demanded young Tommy 
promptly. 

“It is quite possible that I may be at home,” ad- 
mitted Miss Eliot. 

“Sib!” said young Tommy, under his breath, star- 
ing down into her eyes, “Sib!” and for the second 
time that evening Miss Eliot flushed and looked away, 
while the younger Carteret’s world broke from its 
moorings, and began to go slowly round like a Catha- 
rine wheel. 


CHAPTER III 


Carteret Never Failed Carteret 

At the open window below, an apparently demented 
young man seized upon Miss Eliot, and, after directing 
glances of haughty rebuke at Tommy Carteret, bore 
his prize away to where a two-step was being executed. 
Tommy Carteret grinned and made his way down the 
ball-room, where he fell in with Arabella Crowley and 
a plate of sandwiches. 

“You are a very rude young man,” said Mrs. Crow- 
ley, beaming affectionately upon him. “You should 
have spoken to me first and to my niece afterward.” 

“Now don’t be nasty to me. Aunt Arabella,” said 
young Tommy — he had always called her Aunt Ara- 
bella for no reason whatever — “because I am feeling 
in particularly good spirits, and I don’t want them 
tampered with. Particularly good spirits,” he repeated. 

Mrs. Crowley narrowed her keen old eyes for an 
instant, and made room beside her. 

“Sit down here,” she said, “and tell me how you 
find Sibyl.” 

“Sibyl,” said young Tommy, flushing a bit, “Sibyl 
is — Sibyl — well, there aren’t words for Sibyl! — Why 
didn’t I ever know it before?” he demanded, frowning 
fiercely. Arabella Crowley cackled over her caviar 
sandwich. 

“The point is,” she observed, “that you know it 
now. She’s a very dear girl. Tommy.” 

29 


30 


TOMMY CARTERET 


“Do you think I'll dispute that?” cried young 
Tommy. “I tell you there aren't words for her!” 

“How very young you are, child!'' commented 
Arabella Crowley. “Let me see! Five-and-twenty ? '' 

“Six,” said Tommy briefly. 

“And Sibyl's just turned twenty,” pursued the old 
woman. “That is a very good difference. I think 
she has missed you. Tommy, while you were away. 
When do you leave us again?” 

“I don't leave you,” said young Tommy Carteret 
with some decision. “ I've knocked about quite enough. 
I'm going to settle down.” 

Mrs. Crowley cackled again, but she patted the boy's 
hand fondly and nodded at him. 

“I don't mind telling you. Tommy,” she said, “that 
I should be glad to see you and Sibyl grow to care for 
each other. Sibyl is a very lovely girl as well as a 
beautiful one, and you're the only young man in this 
set here whom I should care to see her marry. I think 
you could make her happy.” 

“D'you think I can ever make her care for me, 
though ? ” demanded young Tommy, suddenly attacked 
by miserable doubt. “I'm a — rotten bad love-maker, 
you know. I — it has never been in my line.” 

“She will care for you, right enough, if you give her 
time,” said old Mrs. Crowley. “And, when she does care, 
she will care very hard. Tommy. She has red hair.” 

“I wish I were sure,” mourned young Tommy, still 
cast down. “A while ago, up on the housetop yonder, 
I — I thought — it seemed to me we were getting on 
swimmingly. Somehow I'm not so sure, now. I wish 

I knew. I wish . You see, we've always been 

such good pals. That's a beast of a handicap, you 
know. She knows all my silly faults.” 


CARTERET NEVER FAILED CARTERET 31 


‘T think she missed you while you were away/^ said 
old Mrs. Crowley again, nodding her white head. 

“I wish I knew I” wailed young Tommy as if it were 
an anthem. 

Arabella Crowley sat looking at him in silence for 
some moments, and her face changed from its half- 
tender amusement and became very grave and a bit 
anxious. 

“Tommy,” she said finally and halted, frowning 
uncertainly. “Tommy,” she said again, “you may be 
very young in love matters. In fact, my dear, you are 
very, very young, but in some ways you’re oddly 
grown-up. You and — and your father are very unlike. 
You’re the steady, reliable one. He’s the — he’s dif- 
ferent. You know.” 

Young Tommy laughed. 

“Oh, yes! the governor’s a bit gay at times,” he said. 
“You see, he never grew old. His hair turned white, 
but the rest of him’s younger than I am.” 

“Exactly!” said Arabella Crowley, but she did not 
smile in answer to his laugh. 

“I’ve — been very fond of him, you know,” she went 
on. “Almost all my life I’ve been fond of him. I nar- 
rowly escaped being your mother. Tommy. And so I 
— I’d like to do him a good turn if ever I could.” 

Young Tommy was watching her face now with a 
little alert frown. 

“Aah!” he said slowly. “Governor invading some- 
body’s hearth-rug again ? What ? Don’t you be 
alarmed about that. Aunt Arabella. The governor’s 
careful. He won’t come any croppers.” 

“Couldn’t you — get him to go away somewhere. 
Tommy?” she begged. “Couldn’t you get him up 
into the mountains? — Greenland’s icy mountains or 


32 


TOMMY CARTERET 


India’s coral strand, or somewhere ? — I don’t think the 
air is good for him here. And — Tommy, everybody 
comes a cropper sometime, you know. You can go on 
half a lifetime, taking your fences blind, but one day 
you’ll be rolled out.” Young Tommy laughed aloud. 

“Aunt Arabella,” said he, ^^you ought to be sitting 
up over that door yonder. You’re a raven, that’s what 
you are. A Poe’s raven.” And the old woman tried 
to smile in answer, but it was a wry smile. 

“Aye, Tommy,” she said. “I’m Cassandra to-night, 
and my bones quake oddly. There’s something in the 
air. There’s trouble gathering — or, maybe it is only a 
coming rain that has quickened my rheumatism. Run 

along and play, child! Don’t listen to me . All the 

same, I wish you’d get him away — I’m afraid.” 

“I’m off for home,” said Tommy. “There won’t be 
another chance at Sibyl, and I don’t care about the rest 
of this. Where is the governor? I might take him 
along with me.” 

“He’s gone,” said Arabella Crowley. “I think he 
said he was going to his club.” She put a certain em- 
phasis on the “said,” and young Tommy laughed again. 

“Good night. Aunt Arabella,” said he, “good night! 
And don’t you worry about the governor. He’s an old 
hand.” 

He sought out his hostess and said good night to her, 
and was making his way out of the room when he came 
once more upon Miss Sibyl Eliot, convoyed this time by 
a little yellow, spectacled man of mild aspect. 

“Going, Tommy?” she said. “Won’t they let you 
stay out late ? Never you mind. You’ll grow.” She 
turned to the little yellow man with a sudden expression 
of concern. 

“I’ve left my fan out on that balcony,” she said. “A 


CARTERET NEVER FAILED CARTERET 33 


big white fluffy fan. Could you get it before it is picked 
up by some one else ? V\\ wait here with Mr. Carteret/’ 
Then when the little yellow man had gone away, she 
said: 

“Was I nasty, up on deck. Tommy? — About coming 
down so abruptly, I mean. Please, I’m sorry. I — 
thought I’d made a sort of fool of myself over that island 
of mine, and I was a bit angry with me. Be a dear 
Tommy, and understand.” 

“Oh, Sib!” said young Tommy Carteret in a sort of 
groan. “Oh, Sib! you’re so very beautiful!” Miss 
Eliot went, all at once, pink, but it must have been with 
pleasure, for she smiled upon young Tommy quite 
divinely, and made not the slightest effort to contradict 
him. 

“Now you are a dear Tommy!” she said. “Here 
comes that person with my silly fan. Good night, 
Tommy. Sweet dreams! And remember about to- 
morrow.” 

Young Tommy remembered her for a very long time 
as she looked to him just then — flushed a little, smiling 
divinely, the light behind her making a wonderful golden 
halo of her red hair. 

He was going down the steps to the street before he 
realised that he had moved at all. A double row of 
coupes and broughams stood waiting along the kerb, and 
the carriage man deferentially called young Tommy by 
name and asked him what his number was, but Tommy 
shook his head and turned down the avenue on foot. 
He wanted air and space — a great deal of it, and free- 
dom of movement, and time to think the fine, big, beau- 
tiful thoughts that came crowding into his head. 

The sudden fears and misgivings which had attacked 
him while he was talking with Arabella Crowley were 


34 


TOMMY CARTERET 


quite gone now. Had not Sibyl said, ‘‘You’re a dear 
Tommy ? ” — and in their place abode a vague but glow- 
ing elation, a keen sense of something sweet and won- 
derful beyond words which suddenly had come into his 
life and was never again to leave him. He was not so 
foolish as to think that he had but to hold out his hand 
to Sibyl Eliot — to call to her and she would straightway 
come. He knew that this present tenderness of hers was 
no love in any real sense of the word, but he knew that 
in time he could make her care, and care infinitely. And 
the thought of Sibyl, Sibyl, loving such a worm as him- 
self, filled him with a sort of vertigo, lifted him madly 
from the pavement. 

What a silly empty waste his life had been, mourned 
young Tommy within himself. (This was at Fifty-ninth 
Street, where he was all for walking blindly through a 
cross-town surface car, so fine was his frenzy.) What 
a lonely, arid, meaningless expanse! (Mind you, he 
was six-and- twenty, the lamb!) To think of those 
wasted years, lost for always! Ah, but he’d make them 
up, he and Sib together! The larks they’d have — the 
places they’d go, jolly little out-of-the-way places that 
he had liked even when he was alone. To think 

of them with Sib there beside one! And Sib’s 

island, too, black-green against the sunset. He threw 
back his head vdth a little shaking laugh as he remem- 
bered Sib’s telling about Pico. 

“If you’d been on our ship that evening I’d have 
dared you to jump overboard and swim with me to 
Pico ” fP A?/ hadn’t he been there ? He tried to im- 

agine standing beside a steamer’s rail with Sib against 
his shoulder and the wind blowing Sib’s splendid hair 
across her eyes — and a motor-car nearly brought his 
young life to a close. This was at Forty-second Street. 


CARTERET NEVER FAILED CARTERET 35 


And so all down the long stretch of the Avenue his 
soul raved and shouted within him, picturing such a 
life as never was lived — for had there ever, within time’s 
span, been a Sibyl? — beggaring heaven of its golden 
streets and its fabled delights to furnish forth the small 
particular heaven which was to compass one very young, 
very unworthy man named Carteret and one fairy- 
book queen with red hair. He cut across Broadway 
at Twenty-third Street, and an apoplectic old gentle- 
man whom he nearly upset cursed him painstakingly, 
but he did not know it. He strode with mighty steps 
and a threatening stick through the shabby garish lights 
of Fourteenth Street, and on into the quiet gloom of the 
lower Avenue, but his eyes were aloft and afar until at 
last the arch loomed dim before him, and he was in 
Washington Square. 

The bells all over the city were striking twelve as he 
ran up the steps of the house where the Carterets had 
lived for half a century, and where he himself had been 
born, and old Parkins, grave and grey, let him in and 
took his coat and hat. 

Governor in yet. Parkins?” demanded young 
Tommy. 

“Not yet, Mr. Thomas,” said old Parkins. “Will 
you have lights, sir?” i 

“Oh, yes!” said young Tommy. “Lights in the 
library and dining-room. I shall be up a long while, I 
think. You’d best fix things for the night. Parkins, 
and turn in. The governor has his key.” 

“Thank you, sir, I shall be up for an hour yet, sir,” 
said old Parkins as one who gently reproves, but 
Tommy was in the small particular heaven again, 
striding up and down the hall, with his hands in his 
pockets, and did not hear. He went into the big square 


36 


TOMMY CARTERET 


dining-room, where the lights which Parkins had made 
were mirrored and multiplied on heavy centre-table and 
panelled walls, and he poured himself a long whiskey 
and water at the sideboard, for his walk had made him 
thirsty. He stood at the head of the table with his 
glass on high, and, out of the shadows at the far end of 
the room, gleamed dim to him a crown of hair, copper- 
red; under it, eyes great and tender; lips that smiled 
divinely. 

“God save the Queen!” said young Tommy Car- 
teret in a new voice that his friends would not have 
known — not even Sibyl. It occurred to him that this 
was the first time he had ever drunk to a woman, save 
on a few very stately and formal occasions when the 
toast had meant nothing to him. He set down his 
glass upon the old mahogany and pulled up a near-by 
chair. That small particular heaven which gleamed 
so bravely aloft and ahead threw over its walls a rosy 
golden glow, and young Tommy sat within the glow, 
basking. 

So sweet she was, so rich in all tenderness, so ineffably 
dear! What a child one moment and then, the next, 
by some sudden miracle, what a woman to pet and 
mother one! He set his elbows on the table before him 
and his chin in his two fists, and his eyes, turned al- 
chemists in one evening, looked back upon the Sibyl of 
old days, transmuting girl to goddess, finding a thou- 
sand exquisite lovelinesses which he, swine of the gutter 
that he was, had passed by, blindly. How she should 
glorify these dark old rooms which had known no 
woman for twenty years! How sunshine should follow 
her into their dimmest corners! How Carteret House 
should wake to life and beauty! 

Yonder she should sit, said young Tommy, in his 


CARTERET NEVER FAILED CARTERET 37 


glow from Paradise, just across the table there, to pour 

him his morning coffee . What luck that old 

Tommy breakfasted in his own rooms! In one of 
those lacy, flowing morning things she^d be, with her 
splendid hair, that deep red hair so like to tawny 
sherry, in a big knot at the back of her neck, and her 
slim hands busy about the Carteret silver which had 
never known such hands in all its life — What silver had ? 

‘‘Oh, Sib!” cried young Tommy in a sudden trem- 
bling ecstasy of love and tenderness, “Oh, Sib, you’re 
so very beautiful!” And the goddess across the table, 
busy over the Carteret silver, flushed just as pink as if 
the words were new to her and not outworn with much 
repeating, and said, divinely smiling: 

“You are a dear Tommy!” 

It may have been an hour that he sat there, dream- 
ing his radiant dreams, painting his rainbow pictures: 
time had no meaning to him. He was awakened at 
last by voices in the hall — Parkins’s grave, gentle tones 
and his father’s quicker ones so absurdly like his own. 
Then, in a moment, old Tommy looked in through the 
door. 

“Ah, young ’un, still up?” he said. “I shall turn in, 
I think. Good night! ” But young Tommy started up 
in protest. 

“No, wait a bit, governor!” he called. “Don’t go 
to bed yet. I want company. I want — I want to make 
a night of it.” He came out into the brighter light of 
the hall, smiling his foolish ecstatic smile, and caught 
the elder man by the shoulders, shaking him gently to 
and fro. 

“Don’t go to bed. Tommy!” he said again — they 
had an odd habit of calling each other Tommy — “I 
want you to celebrate with me. I want some one to 


38 


TOMMY CARTERET 


talk to. I couldn’t sleep if I should take Prussic acid. 
Come and have a drink! Do you good! ” 

Old Tommy stirred a bit uneasily and seemed to hesi- 
tate. If the other had been less enwrapped with his 
own newly discovered happiness, he might have noticed 
that old Tommy looked oddly worn and drawn and 
nervous. But at last he laughed, shaking his head at 
his big son. 

Right, infant! Lead on! I was feeling just a bit 
seedy and had thought of bed, but if you need a listener, 
I’m your man. Yes, I will have a nip — ^just a wee nip.” 
He crossed to the sideboard and took up the decanter 
of rye, scorning young Tommy’s Scotch, and, if he had 
not kept his back turned, his son and heir might have 
been surprised to see that the ‘‘wee nip” was a glass 
full to the top. Old Tommy was commonly a most 
abstemious man. 

“Aah!” he said with a long breath of satisfaction, 
turning back into the room. “That’s better — I — 
needed it. Now, young ’un, what’s the news behind 
that silly grin of yours ? To my experienced eye, it has 
the look of calf love. What?” 

“Governor!” said young Tommy again, laying vio- 
lent hands upon his parent, “governor, I’m going to 
settle down.” 

“The devil you are!” said old Tommy. 

“The devil lam!” said his son. “No more wander- 
ing about, no more looking for trouble in far corners of 
Europe. Governor, I’m going to marry!” 

“Ah! bringing your trouble nearer home, what?” 
nodded the old beau. 

“That is,” conditioned young Tommy, “if the girl 
will have me.” 

“Ah now, it’s well you thought of that! ” said Carteret 


CARTERET NEVER FAILED CARTERET 39 


senior. “You’d better ask her. They sometimes do. 
May I enquire who the lady is ? ” 

Young Tommy went red and looked critically into 
his glass. 

*‘It’s — well, it’s Sibyl Eliot,” he said, and the elder 
man gave an exclamation of surprise. 

“By Jove I” he cried, “I’d never thought of Sibyl 
Eliot. But, for that matter, I’d never thought of your 
marrying at all. One never realises that children grow 
up. Sibyl Eliot! Tommy, I’m not sure but you’ve 
more sense and taste than I’ve ever credited you with. 
Does the — er — lady know ? ” 

“The lady does not,” said young Tommy. “It — 
why, it came over me all in a — all in a sort of rush, you 
know, to-night at that Devereux place.” 

“It sometimes does,” nodded the other man. 

“A queer sort of rush, you know,” said young Tommy, 
still filled with wonder at the miracle. “Very peculiar. 
Oh, Lord, no! Sib doesn’t guess it at all. What you 
laughing at ? But I tell you, governor, I think — I rather 
think I can make it, with a bit of time. Sib likes me, 
I’ll swear, and to-night she said — well, I’m sure she 
likes me. Think of it, will you? Sib liking me!” 

“No accounting for their tastes, my dear boy,” said 
the elder man. “They take up with queer lots at 
times. So you want to marry, eh ? How old are you ? 
Five — six — six-and-twenty. Six-and-twenty! Well, 
why not ? If a young chap comes to me to ask advice 
about marrying, I generally say, at once, “Don’t 
you do it!” But I’m not so sure about you, young 
’un. You’ve been about a good bit, and you’re the — 
the steady running sort. You’re not like me. Tommy. 
Thank your gods for that! You’re more like your 
mother. She was a very excellent woman. Nothing 


40 


TOMMY CARTERET 


light or uncertain about her. Yes, son, if you can 
coax Sibyl Eliot into it, marry her, I say, by all means. 
You have plenty of money and nothing to do. You 
shall have the house here, of course. I shall put up 
with you when I’m asked, but I shan’t trouble you 
much. You see,” said old Tommy with his whimsical, 
mischievous smile, “you see, I’m out so much!” He 
stood off a few paces and looked at his son and heir 
with a certain new and amused interest, with a certain 
dawning of new respect — as one must look at a lad 
suddenly become a man. 

Little Tommy!'* said he, shaking a melancholy 
head. “Little Tommy! And he’s going to get him- 
self married to little Sibyl Eliot! God bless my soul, 
lad! I must be growing old. It’s only last month or 
last winter, I should think, that I saw little Sibyl Eliot 
being pushed up and down the lower Avenue in a yellow 
p’ram. I remember that she had an exceptionally 
pretty nurse. Um! yellow hair, very nice in the sun- 
light, and blue eyes!” 

“Sib has red hair!” declared young Tommy, in- 
dignantly. “And her eyes aren’t blue, they’re dark- 
brown — ^bronze.” 

“I was — er — speaking of the nurse,” said old Tommy, 
rubbing a reflective head. “Exceptionally pretty she 
was. — Aye, aye, Thomas, I must be growing old. 
Who’d ha’ thought it?” 

“Nobody!” said young Tommy, laughing. “No- 
body, governor. You’re years younger than I am. 
I was saying so only this evening to Aunt Arabella 
Crowley.” 

“Arabella Crowley!” said the elder man, and gave 
a little chuckle of retrospective amusement. “Ara- 
bella has me on her mind, I fear. She was lecturing 


CARTERET NEVER FAILED CARTERET 41 


me, to-night. It's a way she has. Eh, well! she was 
a dear girl. I might have done worse, thirty years 
ago. I might have done worse." 

Young Tommy was marching up and down the room 
with a fine disregard of furniture and such. He caught 
an arm about his father’s shoulders, and dragged that 
impotently protesting gentleman with him, up and 
down, up and down. 

“And I say, governor," he cried, “I say, you know, 
this — this thing, even if it — if it should come off, it’s 
to make no difference between you and me, what? 
We’ve — ^well, we’ve always stuck together, governor, 
and we’re not going to split even for Sib. Sib’s very 
fond of you, you know, and she knows what pals we 
are, you and I. She knows that there’s nothing that 
we wouldn’t do for each other, and she won’t expect 
to — come between, you know. There’ ve been some 
rotten bad Carterets at one time or another, but they’ve 
always stood shoulder to shoulder, whatever happened. 
They’re not going to break that record now." He 
laughed diffidently with a boy’s awkwardness at dis- 
playing anything like emotion before another man. 
He was not in the way of making affectionate speeches 
to his father, nor of showing tenderness before him, but 
this sudden great surge of feeling had filled him, all at 
once, with unwonted affection toward everything he 
held dear, and vaguely he felt that it would be a relief 
to express it. 

The two had wandered in their aimless tramp out 
into the long hall, where rows of Carterets in orderly 
progression toward antiquity peered or swaggered 
from their ornate frames. 

“Some of those old chaps,” said young Tommy, 
pointing, “did fine things, did they not? And some 


42 


TOMMY CARTERET 


were shocking bounders, but Carteret never failed 
Carteret. There’s some sort of a motto about it, ain’t 
there, governor ? What ? ” 

Old Tommy looked up at the rows of staring Car- 
terets and nodded gravely. 

“‘Carteret never failed Carteret,’” said he. “It has 
been our boast.” And as if some one, just then, had 
stepped upon his undug grave, a little fit of shivering 
came over him, and shook him from head to foot. 

“I’ve a bit of a chill,” he said. And he turned once 
more into the dining-room and refilled the little glass 
with his potent old rye. Then for a time the two sat 
talking in the library, with its shelf-lined walls and its 
big, square writing-table in the centre, but, after a few 
moments, old Tommy shook his head and rose. 

“I really must go to my sleep, young ’un,” he said. 
“ I’m not quite fit to-night. We must celebrate another 
time. You understand, don’t you, that you’ve my 
best wishes ? Sibyl’s a dear girl. I shall be glad and 
proud to see her in Carteret House. So, good night, 
lad, I’m what’s that?” 


CHAPTER IV 


Tommy Does Not Fail 

The two in the library had not heard Parkins’s well- 
trained steps in the hall outside, but they distinctly 
heard him now. He was at the door, arguing in his 
respectful tones with some one who evidently wished 
to enter — some one with a harsh peremptory voice, in 
which there was no sign of giving way. 

‘^Who the devil can that be?” said young Tommy. 
“It sounds like that Hartwell man — little Mrs. Hart- 
well’s husband, but he wouldn’t be coming here at 
this hour. It’s after one. I’ll just step out there and 
see.” 

As he went, he threw a glance backward over his 
shoulder and halted in sheer surprise. Old Tommy 
Carteret stood upright beside the library table. The 
light from the electric centre lamp fell aslant across 
his face, and Belshazzar’s face must have looked like 
that when he saw the writing on the wall. 

“Jove!” said young Tommy to himself, “the gov- 
ernor w ill! I must get him to bed promptly.” Then 
he turned once more toward the door, and came face 
to face with little Mrs. Hartwell’s husband. 

“Ah, it was you!” said he. “I thought I recognised 
your voice at the door. Wasn’t Parkins going to let 
you in? Come into the library here. The governor 
and I were having a late session. Parkins! Mr. 
Hartwell’s hat and coat.” 


43 


44 


TOMMY CARTERET 


‘‘You need not trouble,” said Hartwell to the serv- 
ant. “ I shall not take my coat off.” And he pushed 
by young Tommy into the library. Young Tommy 
followed him, frowning slightly. He did not like the 
other man’s manner. Of course, it might be that 
Hartwell had not seen his proffered hand, but, even 
at that, it was almost too much like the traditional 
bailiff entering his victim’s house. 

Carteret senior still stood upright beside the big 
writing-table, and his face was set like a dead man’s 
face. To say that a person has grown, all in a moment, 
ten years older is an ancient and abused phrase which 
has become almost meaningless. Such a momentary 
transformation, however, can and sometimes does take 
place in a most startling manner, when such a man as 
the elder Carteret, unnaturally fresh and youthful in 
spite of advanced age, is all at once brought face to 
face with a tremendous emotion. Young Tommy, 
at the sight, nearly made outcry. Then the figure 
by the table spoke in a dry voice, totally without ex- 
pression. 

“You — ^have come to see — me?” it said to the in- 
truder. “We would best be — alone. Tommy, will 
you be so good as to — leave me with Mr. — Hartwell? 
Parkins need not wait up.” 

“Yes, yes, of course I” said young Tommy, hastily. 
“Yes, I’ll be off.” But the newcomer held up his 
hand. 

“My business,” he said, “is with Mr. Carteret 

junior, but I shall be glad if you ” he made a stiff 

but not unkindly bow to the elder man, “if you will 
remain.” 

A sort of tremor passed over old Tommy Carteret, 
a visible tremor, shaking him. 


TOMMY DOES NOT FAIL 


45 


‘T do not ” said he, and paused to moisten his 

lips, “I do not understand/’ 

‘‘You will presently,” said the visitor. And old 
Tommy dropped back into his chair, faltering as very 
old people do. 

“You know,” said Hartwell, sharply, turning to 
where young Tommy stood waiting civilly for the 
other to seat himself, “you know why I am here?” 

Young Tommy gave a puzzled little laugh, for the 
situation was quite beyond him. 

“Why, no!” he said. “No, Fm afraid I don’t, 
quite.” 

“After what happened this evening? ” persisted the 
visitor. 

“I didn’t know,” said young Tommy, “that anything 
had happened this evening — anything, that is,” he 
corrected, with a laugh, “which at all connects you 
and me.” 

The other man gave his head a quick, angry shake, 
exactly as a bull, goaded by the picadors, shakes its 
head before charging. It was evident that he was in 
a very deep and dangerous rage, which he was making 
a strong effort to control. 

“You are, I believe, a very young man,” said he, 
looking under his brows at Tommy Carteret. “The 
fact that you are so young makes this coolness 
— this effrontery — amazing, sir. Before God, young 
Carteret, how can you stand, facing me with that smile 
of unconcern?” The smile of unconcern died swiftly 
from young Tommy’s face, and his mouth drew tight. 

“W^at the devil do you mean?” he said. There 
was still perplexity in his tone, but with it the beginning 
of anger. 

“I mean this,” said the other man. “You have 


46 


TOMMY CARTERET 


done me the greatest wrong one man can do another. 
You have been welcomed and trusted in my home, 
and, in return, you have stolen what makes that home 
possible. Can you laugh and sneer, still? By the 
unwritten law which men everywhere acknowledge, 
I have the right to kill you where you stand, even 
though you stand bare-handed.” 

Young Tommy did laugh — a short laugh of sheer 
amazement, and he bent forward, peering into the 
other man’s face to see if, by any chance, Hartwell 
could be irresponsible from drink. 

“No!” he said under his breath. “No, you’re not 
drunk.” And he laughed again in utter helplessness. 
The thing was grotesque. 

Neither of the two, so great was their preoccupa- 
tion, had so much as given a glance toward the third 
man in the room, though it would seem that old Tom- 
my’s face might just then have been interesting to see. 
One would like the chance to observe a condemned 
criminal’s face when, at the very scaffold’s edge, a 
chance — a tiny chance — for escape appears. Still, I 
think that is hardly a fair comparison to make. Not 
just here, anyhow. I think old Tommy’s mind worked 
scarce so lightning-quick as this — to see a loophole 
at the very beginning. I think his first moments of 
horror and fear had too much benumbed him. For 
all that, his face must have been interesting. It is a 
pity there was no one to see. 

But even as young Tommy, helpless in his bewilder- 
ment, laughed, the elder Carteret was half out of his 
chair, leaning upon one elbow, one hand across the 
heavy table. His voice came to the other men in a 
palsied whisper, hoarse, and dry. 

“Wait! wait!” said old Tommy in his whispering 


TOMMY DOES NOT FAIL 


47 


croak. His eyes sought the interloper. ‘‘You don’t 
know what — you are saying!” whispered old Tommy. 
“Let him go! let my son — go. This is a — matter for 
you and me.” Hartwell shook his head, and he looked 
at the old man strained across the table’s top with a 
sort of pity, a sort of sorrowful regret. 

“No, old friend,” said he. “God knows I regret 
having to say these things in your hearing, but I must 
say them. Do you think I am in fun? — I tell you!” 
he cried, and the hoarse rage came back to his tone, 
seeming to shake his very body, “I tell you he has 
robbed me of my honour! Is not that plain enough? 
Do I speak obscurely? This blackguard, this thief, 
this scoundrel, boy though he is ” 

“No! No!” said old Tommy, still in his broken 
whisper. “No, you don’t understand, Hartwell! You 
are making a horrible mistake. That is not true!” 

I am glad old Tommy said that. I am glad he made 
a fight, poor and futile though it was, against the odds 
which were overwhelming him. He tried, but oh, he 
was weak, was Tommy! Arabella Crowley would 
have told you that. 

“It is not true!” he said, straining impotently 
toward the accuser. But young Tommy held up 
his hand. 

“Hold on, governor!” said he. “Just give me a 
chance. This appears to be my party.” He moved 
a step toward the other man, and there was no more 
mirth left in his face. It was square and hard. 

“Now,” he said, “you will explain! You have called 
me some very hard and unpopular names, and have 
quite absurdly accused me — if I correctly understand 
you — of a serious crime. As my father says, the thing 
is a mistake, a bad one, and one which you will have 


48 


TOMMY CARTERET 


occasion heartily to regret, but, for the present, please 
explain yourself/’ 

The other man’s breathing was short, and his hands, 
which he held behind him, shook uncontrollably. 

‘T am not making a mistake,” he said. ‘Tf I were 
in the least uncertain, the brazen — the unbelievable 
assurance you exhibit would almost convince me. 
You visited my wife this evening at my home between 
twelve and one o’clock. When I brought her home 
from the Devereux ball, where we stayed only a few 
moments, I went to my club, saying that I should not 
return before two, as I had a meeting which I expected 
to be a protracted one. I returned, instead, at half- 
past twelve, and, letting myself in with my latch- 
key, I chanced to hear voices in one of the rooms ad- 
joining the hall. I — listened.” Hartwell drew oiit Ja 
handkerchief to wipe his lips, and young Tomir^ 
Carteret saw how uncontrollably his hands were shak- 
ing, and realised under what a terrible strain the 
man spoke. 

‘T listened,” he went on, “because I at once recog- 
nised the two voices, and, because, some months ago, 
before — before you left New York to go to London, I 
had had reason to — ^to feel disturbed in mind. I — 
heard enough, to-night, to know that the worst which 
could befall has — ^befallen; that my house has been — 
has been dishonoured. — ^You devil in man’s flesh!” 
he burst out flercely, all his rigid control of himself 
torn for an instant to shreds, “you thief! Can you 
stand there, calm, and listen? Can you brazen it out 
still further? Good God, I had not thought ” 

“Go on!” said young Tommy Carteret, sharply. 
“Go on! Leave your cursing till later. You thought 
you recognised a man’s voice. Anything more?” 


TOMMY DOES NOT FAIL 


49 


The quick, sharp tone seemed to bring the other back 
to his feet. 

“Much more,” said he. “The man escaped. 
Some involuntary movement on my part made a noise 
and gave him warning. He jumped from an open 
window to some flower beds below, and escaped, but 
he was so unfortunate as to leave behind him an article 
of personal use — marked.” HartwelFs shaking fin- 
gers drew from his coat pocket a handkerchief — a 
man’s handkerchief of white linen. 

“You will find,” said he, “the Carteret arms in one 
comer.” 

There was a long, slow sigh from the man sitting 
beyond the big centre-table, and a little rustling, crack- 
ling sound as the man sank lower, drooping, in his 
chair, but the others did not hear. 

Young Tommy took the handkerchief with a con- 
temptuous exclamation. 

“Worthless, my friend,” said he. “You have not 
the slightest evidence that the man you heard talking 
with your wife, and fancied to be me, dropped this.” 

“There is more,” said the other man. “My wife 
is, and has been from the moment of which I speak 
— ^the moment of discovery — in a highly dangerous 
nervous state, but, in spite of that, I wrung from her 
a name.” 

“Aah!” said young Tommy Carteret. 

“She lies at home now,” said the wronged husband, 
“tossing from side to side of her bed, alternately moan- 
ing and shrieking, always calling upon a name — the 
same name. Have I said enough?” 

“A name,” said young Tommy Carteret, slowly and 
deliberately, as if he were a judge weighing evidence, 
“a name spoken by a woman in delirium— practically 


50 


TOMMY CARTERET 


delirium — a handkerchief, which may or may not 
have been dropped by the man who jumped into your 
flower beds, and a voice which you think to have 
been mine/’ 

‘‘Which I know to have been yours,” said the other. 
“There is no mistaking it.” 

“That is nonsense!” said young Tommy. “A 
voice is very easily mistaken. Why, as a case in point, 
my father and I have voices amazingly alike.” In 
the very middle of the sentence, his voice caught as 
something from within gripped him by the throat and 
by the heart together, but he took fierce hold upon him- 
self and finished the words without apparent break. 
Then slowly, very slowly, young Tommy’s eyes turned 
to old Tommy, huddled in his chair. One of old 
Tommy’s feet was in the circle of light from the over- 
head electric lamp, and there was earth caked about 
the sole — fresh earth and black. As slowly, old 
Tommy’s sunken lids rose, and his eyes met his son’s 
eyes — and they both knew. 

Poor old Tommy! Yes, he was pitifully weak. I 
think he tried. Ah, I know he tried. I think that, 
even in this moment, he half rose from his chair and 
fell back again. I think those dry lips of his opened 
once and twice, but no words came. Yes, he was 
weak. 

I can see his old face now, so sunken and haggard 
that you would not have known the spruce beau who had 
so long and so successfully defied time to mark him. 
I can see those piteous upturned eyes ask a question of 
the young eyes above them — clamour a desperate 
panic-stricken appeal, maybe, though I think not. 
I think he was beyond panic then. I seem to see him 
calm, without either hope or despair, somehow in a 


TOMMY DOES NOT FAIL 


51 


region beyond these — putting that question to the son 
who stood above him. 

And I see young Tommy’s face, square, hard, 
inscrutable, with steady, unwinking eyes. I know the 
lightning flash of his mind — the instant comprehension, 
the swift connecting of present evidence with Arabella 
Crowley’s warning, with what he had always known 
of the old beau’s character. I see his quick brain, all 
in that instant’s pause, go further over the strange 
misconception that this Hartwell has formed. I see 
him put to himself the question those old eyes below 
are asking, and weigh its uttermost implication. Shall 
Carteret save Carteret? Shall the strong bear the 
weak’s blame and punishment? Oddly prophetic 
that conversation of a half-hour previous! Shall 
Carteret save Carteret? What a coil of circumstance! 
Men have been hanged for less. Easy, of course, 
to escape, here. Easy to prove where he had been for 
every hour of the evening, but, once cleared himself, 
there’s that voice and handkerchief. Poor old gov- 
ernor! Carteret never failed Carteret in time of need. 

But what a coil! I think young Tommy must almost 
have laughed within him at the absurdity of it. There 
was so much to damn him! What was it this man 
had said about his suspicions of months ago? True 
again! Young Tommy had had a spell, during the 
previous autumn, of going much to the Hartwells. His 
father had first taken him there. He had liked that 
little woman. He must have remembered, now, that 
Hartwell had never been cordial — always a surly beast. 
What a coil! 

Young Tommy turned back toward the other man — 
mind you, this pause had been for no more than an 
instant, that instant in which a man falling from a 


52 


TOMMY CARTERET 


height reviews all his life — aye, lives it over again in 
scenes and pictures. And he made a little hopeless 
gesture, with his two hands, as it were of defeat, of 
acquiescence. 

‘‘And if I say that it is I?” he asked. “If I admit 
my guilt? What is it you would have? Is there re- 
paration for such a thing?” The other man’s face 
went suddenly purple, and one of his arms swung back 
as if he would strike young Tommy, but he mastered 
himself with a visible wrench. 

“No,” said he in an odd, breathless tone — ^he had 
been under great strain, mind you, for some time now — 
“No, there is no reparation. What has been done 
cannot be undone. There is no reparation, but there 
is revenge. Your life is forfeit to me, and I mean to 
have it.” 

Young Tommy’s face brightened. He had lived 
much in Europe, and in some things he had come to 
think as Europeans do. It seemed to him that, when 
one man injured or insulted another beyond bearing, 
the most natural and satisfactory recourse of the 
aggrieved man was to demand the risk of the other’s 
life, as earnest of his seriousness. He believed, with 
the Europeans, that the prospect of this risk does more 
than anything else conceivable to put a curb on tongue 
and action in one’s relations with one’s neighbour. 
And so, when this other man spoke of his right over 
young Tommy’s life, young Tommy was glad, for he 
thought that Hartwell meant a recourse to arms, and 
that seemed to him a very satisfactory ending to the 
affair. It might have been so much worse. 

“Good I” he said aloud. “I quite agree with you. 
I will give you the names of two men upon whom I feel 
able to make such a claim, and your friends can see 


TOMMY DOES NOT FAIL 


53 


them to-morrow, to make all the arrangements. The 
thing will have to be very quiet, for the American law 
is rather absurd about such matters.” 

But the other man, for the first time, laid down 
his hat and seated himself beside the big centre-table. 
He was smiling, a little, cold, fixed smile which puzzled 
young Tommy. 

‘‘You — misunderstand me,” he said. ‘T am not a 
Frenchman or an Italian. I have no love for opdra 
bouff^ in private life. When I said that your life was, 
by the unwritten law, forfeit to me, I meant it literally.” 

Young Tommy Carteret gave a short, amazed laugh. 

“Do you want to murder me?” he asked con- 
temptuously. “Thanks. I think not. I offer you the 
only reparation possible in such a case. It is an hon- 
ourable offer. I certainly shall not stand up bare- 
handed to be shot, nor shall I take rat-poison at your 
request. Perhaps you would explain.” 

“I will, at once,” said the other man. He main- 
tained his odd, cold little smile. 

“I do not wish to kill you,” said he. “That would 
be a very poor sort of revenge — over in a moment. If 
I had meant that I should have come here with a 
pistol and should have wasted no words. No, I have 
a better vengeance than that. I intend to make the 
remainder of your life the hell that my own will be. 
You have wrecked my happiness forever. I — loved 
my wife, and I think she — I think she — ^loved me till 
you came with your fiend’s heart and your devil’s 
tongue. Ah, I shall have my revenge, my lad!” He 
paused a moment, and again drew a handkerchief across 
his lips with that shaking hand. 

“You—” he went on, “you are a young man with a 
young man’s love for life and friends and comfort and 


54 


TOMMY CARTERET 


happiness. You have social position of the best, 
wealth, everything a young man could have to make 
existence a joy. You will leave this life of yours, your 
friends, your position. You will go alone to some 
squalid, remote, forgotten corner, and there you will 
remain so long as I live. I am a strong man of three 
and forty. I should live thirty years more, perhaps 
fifty.- 

Old Tommy Carteret sprang from his chair with a 
hoarse cry. 

** Madness, madness ! - quavered old Tommy. “This 
is unheard of — impossible! I — will not sit by and 
hear — my son agree to any such fiendish plan. I tell 
you,” cried old Tommy, beating the air, “ I tell you it is 
all a horrible blunder. I will explain ” 

But his son cut in sharply: 

“Governor!” and old Tommy’s voice broke. 

It was a gallant effort. Tommy, that last, last flicker 
of manhood! It cost dear, I know; as dear, almost, as 
if it had been a better effort and successful. Poor, old 
Tommy! You hadn’t the strength, had you ? 

“Governor!” said young Tommy and caught his 
father’s piteous eyes with his own strong gaze. “This 
is my affair, governor,” he said. ^‘Mine! Please 
leave it to me.” And the father dropped once more 
back into his chair, faltering, as old people do. Then 
young Tommy turned to the other man. 

“I quite agree with my father,” said he. “What 
you propose is monstrous — impossible. It is sheer 
madness, and I refuse absolutely to listen to it. I wish 
— will you allow me to say that you are, perhaps — quite 
naturally, indeed — in a state of high excitement to- 
night. Why not leave this discussion until we can 
talk of it more calmly? Wait, wait! I acknowledge 


TOMMY DOES NOT FAIL 


55 


that you have been foully wronged, but later, I think, 
you will see that this — revenge of yours is preposterous. 
Anyhow, once for all, I refuse to do as you demand.” 

The other man waited patiently, and there was some- 
thing horrible, chilling, in that frozen smile of his. 

“Refuse ?” he said when young Tommy had finished. 
“Refuse? I think not. Shall I tell you why? — No, 
put it in this fashion, each side of the matter by itself. 
What if you accept? You leave your life here utterly 
behind. It is as if you suddenly had died — Ah, but a 
living death, friend, a living death! — I shall know 
where you are and keep watch over you lest you escape. 
Here, all goes on as before. No scandal; no outward 
show of disgrace. My wife continues to live in my 
house — not as a wife, for I can never forgive what she 
has done, but the world will know nothing of that. 
Your father continues his life with no shadow of dis- 
grace upon it. I have no wish to visit your sin upon 
him. It is you whom I wish to see suffer, you, you ! 
And, as God lives, you shall suffer, alone and in agony. 

“Take the other side! You refuse my plan. I 
publish the whole matter to-morrow. My wife is dis- 
graced forever. You, and your father through you, are 
disgraced equally. Everywhere you may try to go I 
shall follow you with my story. All your friends here 
will suffer. All the friends you may make elsewhere 
shall know what you have been. Ah, you have great 
store of pride, you Carterets! I know. You may 
wreck the life of a neighbour, of a friend — but suffer 
open disgrace? Never! I know your Carteret blood. 
I know it well. Refuse, friend ? I think not.” 

Young Tommy dropped into a chair, and his chin 
sank to his breast. That smiling man opposite, with 
his square-set jaw and projecting under-lip, meant 


56 


TOMMY CARTERET 


every word he said. He would unfailingly carry out 
every threat to the bitterest utmost end. Young 
Tommy’s mind ran over the miserable outcome. Pages 
garnished with stolen photographs in the newspapers. 
The divorce court. The pitiless investigation with 
its inevitable discovery of the real culprit. The decree 
of divorce against that poor, pretty little woman. 
Black disgrace for the poor old governor, whose only 
fault was that he was so weak. Averted faces; with- 
held bows. Oh, yes! he and the governor would have , 
to leave New York — only to be followed everywhere by 
Hartwell’s revenge. Sib! Aye, there’s the rub! 

Young Tommy turned his eyes to the broken old 
man across the table, and, for an instant, a very human 
wave of rage and bitterness flashed over him. It was 
so cruelly unfair that a man old, past his good years, 
should steal his selfish pleasure, and a man young, 
with life before him — life and Sibyl! — pay the vicarious 
penalty. But, as he looked at the huddled, sunken 
figure, something piteous in it called out to him, the 
weak crying upon the strong, and — he had loved the 
governor very dearly. Shall Carteret fail Carteret? 
‘‘No,” said young Tommy to himself, and he knew to 
its full what the answer meant. “Oh, no!” 

In that instant a boy died, died forever, and a man 
sat in his place, chin sunken upon breast, eyes staring 
out into a future so grim, so black, so lonely that there 
was no rift of light in it anywhere, no breath of hope, no 
gleam of comfort. 

“Carteret never failed Carteret.” 

Good-bye, Sib! — Oh, Sib, Sib, you’re so very 
beautiful! 

Half an hour later young Tommy gently closed the 


TOMMY DOES NOT FAIL 


57 


front door and, with dragging steps, turned back toward 
the library. He felt an odd sense of extreme physical 
fatigue, a curious exhaustion. But, at the library door, 
he halted and called out sharply: 

‘ * Governor I Governor I ’ ’ 

Old Tommy Carteret had not roused himself or 
spoken since his last pitiful protest to Hartwell. He 
had seemed not to notice Hartwell’s departure, but had 
crouched, sunken in his chair, silent and motionless. 
Now he was talking to himself, babbling gently with 
wise, cunning nods and smiles and grimaces. 

“Governor!” cried young Tommy with a great fear 
at his heart, and the old man looked up slyly and shook 
a warning finger. 

“But nobody must ever know, Dolly!” he quavered. 
“Mind you, it’s our secret. Nobody must ever know! 
Eh, Dolly mine?” 

Now, who was “Dolly”? Not poor, little Mrs. 
Hartwell. Her name was Anne. Was Dolly another 
one. Tommy, another poor, pretty fool out of that 
storied past of yours ? One of the army that’s waiting 
to face you on the other side? I’d give something to 
know. 

Young Tommy ran for the decanter and persuaded 
the old man to drink a few swallows, but it seemed of 
no avail. He did not know his son at all. He called 
him Henry. Once he mentioned Arabella Crowley, 
calling her by her maiden name, Arabella Carter. 

“I think I shall marry her, Henry,” he said. “She’s 

a dear girl But, Henry, they’re all such 

dear girls!” 

Was not that like old Tommy? It might fitly be 
carved upon his tombstone. 

Parkins, routed from bed, helped to get the master 


58 


TOMMY CARTERET 


upstairs, and Doctor Langdon came at the trot, sum- 
moned hastily by telephone. 

‘‘He has had a shock,” said young Tommy, “a — 
fright, sort of, and an hour of rather severe strain. Is 
this — this state likely to continue ? ” 

“Oh, no!” said the man of medicine. “He has 
some fever, and, I judge, the shock was severe. He’ll 
come round in a couple of days. Nothing alarming. 
I’ll look in to-morrow. Keep him in bed. He never 
could stand shocks, you know. He was always a bit 
weak, Thomas was.” 

“Yes,” said young Tommy, “the governor always 
was a bit — weak. By the way, I was to leave town to- 
morrow, on — important affairs. Safe to go ? What ? ” 

“Perfectly, perfectly!” said old Doctor Langdon. 
“All he needs is quiet. Well, good night.” 

The elder Carteret was sleeping under an opiate. 
Young Tommy went back to that judgment-hall, 
death-chamber, library, to write a word to Sibyl. 
Perhaps he should not have done it. Perhaps it was a 
little selfish, a tiny blot on a fair shield of conduct. He 
debated it elaborately, but he could not deny himself that 
one pleasure. And I cannot be sorry. One thing he 
sternly demanded: There should be no word of love 
in the note. 

“Sib, dear,” he wrote, after many false starts: 

“I shall not see you to-morrow — I mean to-day, after all; 
nor ever, I think, Sib. Something has happened. — ^You’ll 
guess that, of course — and I am going away. We’ll say 
that I suddenly died last night after leaving you. That’s 
the best way to look at it. I died. Set up a stone to my 
memory, Sib, and then forget me — all but a little, girl, all 
but a little. Don’t quite forget. That is all — save one 
thing. You are not to try to find out what has occurred. 
It will be kept quiet, here, I believe. No good would come 


TOMMY DOES NOT FAIL 


59 


to me of your digging it up, and infinite harm to others. 
Still — this is one luxury I’m going to allow myself out of a 
great deal that isn’t luxury at all — if there should be a tale 
spread, know that it’s not true. I’ve done nothing to be 
ashamed of, nothing that you’d be ashamed of, for me. 
Good bye. Sib. I expect I was too happy, last night. I 
expect I dreamed too much, and so luck gave me this facer. 

“Good bye, 

“Tommy Carteret.” 

This is the note in which there was to be no love. 
Young Tommy read it carefully through, many 
times. 

“God knows there is no love in that,” he said. “It 
might be written to Aunt Arabella Crowley — to a man 
even. Sib, Sib!” 

Oh, Tommy, you were a boy no longer! You^d 
suddenly become a man, I know, but the man knew 
as little about a woman’s mind as the boy had known. 
No love in it? Tommy, Tommy! 

This note sealed and addressed, he wrote again, at 
great length, to his father. He was an hour over it. 
And he left instructions for Parkins that what he had 
written was to be given to old Tommy on the evening 
of that day or as soon as the old man was able to read 
and understand. 

At the end of all he rose, white and very weary, and 
went to one of the windows. He pulled aside the heavy 
curtains which had been drawn for the night, and his 
haggard eyes stared out across the square, where the 
grey dawn was brightening. Sparrows cheeped and 
twittered and fought on the grass plots; two ragged 
loafers were asleep in grotesque postures on one of the 
park benches; a wagon laden with rattling milk cans 
bumped across the pavement, somewhere out of sight; 
and, from the south side of the square, came the scrape 


60 


TOMMY CARTERET 


and shriek of an electric car rounding the corner of 
Fourth Street. 

‘‘Sib!” said young Tommy Carteret, staring wearily 
into the grey dawn. “Sib!” 

The picture of him standing there alone by the 
window, the dreary sound of his voice, saying monoto- 
nously over and over that one word “Sib — Sib!” have 
haunted me. I cannot forget them. 


I 


4 



BOOK 












CHAPTER V 


HOME 

Extracts from the Diary of Young Tommy 
Carteret. ‘'The Cabin on Half- 
Breed Hill.” June 3rd 

I ^0-DAY I moved into my cabin here on the hill. 

I It has been swept and scrubbed and purged 
and garnished since I bought it, with its few 
acres, from young Satterlee, a week ago — young Sat- 
terlee of the tragic eyes. That a pall hangs over it, 
that death has so lately been here, rather pleases my 
whim than otherwise. It is a fit place for such as I. 
My cabin and I should become friends. 

“It is but a tiny thing of two rooms, though 
there is a bit of a kitchen built on at the rear. A few 
steps away is the stable where Satterlee’s good mare — 
my mare now — is housed. A shed for the cart leans 
drunkenly against one side of the stable, and Jared, 
my lad of all work, does for us both — for the mare and 
for me. Jared is washing dishes in the kitchen as I 
write. He broke one a moment ago, and I heard him 
— in a carefully raised tone — berate the inoffensive 
cat for an ornery skunk, designing, I should think, to 
cast blame upon the cat in the matter of the dish. In 
a few moments Jared will finish and go, for the night, 
to his father’s farm across Fisher’s Bottom. Then I 
63 


64 


TOMMY CARTERET 


shall be left alone in my home. Oh, little gods and 
great ones, how you must laugh I Home ! 

“ I have written a word to my jailer — to my master 
in New York, to tell him that I am settled here, and I 
have also written, as briefly, to the governor. Poor 
old governor! He’s suffering for all this too, I know. 
He won’t suffer quite enough to tell the truth and take 
my place here. Still, he’s suffering. A man’s no 
stronger than he’s made. How shall I blame the 
governor ? Oh, yes! I dare say I shall have fits of rage 
and fury at him in these years to come, but — a man’s 
no stronger than he’s made, any more than a bridge is, 
and the governor was made weak, weak and lovable. 

So now that these two are disposed of for the present, 
I begin this journal. It is of common report that no 
one ever kept a journal save with a sneaking thought of 
eventual publication — or at least that the thing should, 
in time, come to other eyes. My thought is different. 
I shall write in this book, day by day, to the end that 
when I am grown old — come to the retrospective years 
(Shall I still be here on this cursed hill, I wonder? 
Ah, none o’ that! None o’ that!), I may look back, 
not with the dim eyes of memory, but in the accuracy 
of black and white, upon the young man who was, all 
in a night, dragged so roughly from his small particular 
heaven in the heart of the world and thrown into this 
small particular hell in outer darkness. His actions, 
thoughts, impressions, and his growth or shrinking, 
should be of interest, one day, to that retrospective old 
man. The situation is unusual. 

“ It shall be to me, this journal of mine, friend, inti- 
mate, confidant — counsellor, even. I shall have no 
other friend — that is evident. My hell is a lonely hell. 
That relentless avenger in New York chose it cun- 


HOME 


65 


ningly. I shall have no other friend, and therefore 
when each long day is done, I mean to sit down with this 
one, who shall have to me a certain living personality, 
and I shall talk to him, argue with him, tell him the 
thoughts that are within me. I seem to see entertain- 
ment — ^Lively? No. Exciting? Hardly. But who 
am I that I should pick and choose ? 

“Jared has ‘finished up his swipes’ and gone. He 
called out a ‘good night!’ to me just now from the 
kitchen door. It grows dim in the cabin. Out to the 
doorstep with me, and a seat there, facing the West! 
Not bad, for lookout, my hill-top, eh? The sun is 
down in a welter of blood beyond the far ridge. It 
will have been a fine battle, that, for all the west is 
gore-streaked — splashes of crimson and gold and 
orange and dun. What a sky for a painter-man! 
Ah, but he’d never get it, for it won’t be still ! Between 
winks it alters and shifts, and it’s paling fast. He 
might get the mist, though, that flat, thin sheet of white- 
blue mist that hangs over the bottom-land. — I have 
not said that this is a land of hills and bottoms. — ^The 
bottom I look across from my cabin door, facing west, 
is a great gulf, hollow as a bowl, and four miles from 
rim to rim. A watercourse twists through it, a torrent 
in spring, they tell me, a trench of dry boulders in 
summer, like those fiumari one sees in Sicily. 

“No, he couldn’t get even the mist, your painter- 
man, for that is shifting now, writhing in the still air 
as if it had life in it (instead of death), making crazy 
shapes, turning round and round upon itself, like a 
dog before it settles to sleep. — Now it’s still, painter- 
man. Quick with you! And look! There’s a thin, 
straight column of smoke streaming up through the 
very middle of it, like a Pagan altar-fire. A tree-stump 


66 


TOMMY CARTERET 


burning, eh ? Who^s burning tree-stumps at this time 
of the year ? Stump-fire or altar-fire, it's a fine picture, 
my painter-man. 

** Put it on canvas, and they'll call you a liar. 

“ Darkening already ? The nights fall swiftly here- 
abouts. What's the droning whisper from the east? 
Ah, the ‘katydids' in the oak-flat, yonder I Thank 
God, they're no nearer. What an infernal din if one is 
walking through a wood road! One must raise one's 
voice to be heard above it. I had never supposed that 
insects could make such a row, even in number. Jared's 
little yellow-haired niece — I helped her fetch the cow, 
last evening — assured me that there are also ‘katy- 
didn'ts,' and tried to teach me to distinguish, but it 
wants a bit of time and experience, I should think. 
Time and experience! Ah, well, I shall have 'em, 
child. I shall have 'em both, full sore, in this solitary 
hell of mine! 

“ How did he know of the place, that devil in New 
York? Can he ever have been here in this God- 
forgotten waste, this ‘Egypt' land? 

“iST. B . — I must find out why they call it ‘Egypt.' 

“ I asked Jared yesterday, but he did not know. Such 
a strange land, walled off from the world with ramparts 
of poverty and ignorance and superstition and sloth. 
To know the poverty, you have but to see the women — 
poor patient cattle — as I saw them on Sunday at the 
school-house prayer- meeting, tricked out in their best 
bits of f^te-day finery. Oh, such pitiful comic bits of 
finery! — a bow of rusty, cracking silk ribbon, a bonnet 
of thirty years back, a sunshade split and ragged. 
One must shriek with laughter if one had not to weep. 
To judge the ignorance, witness the eighteen-year-old 
lad who helped Jared move my things into the cabin 


HOME 


67 


here. This lad had never seen a railway train; and 
yet the nearest town is but nine miles distant. To 
judge the superstition — you cannot judge it. Last 
year a lone old woman lived hereabouts. She was 
reputed to have the evil-eye. Her cabin was burned 
over her head, and the woman driven forth. They 
found her body in a wood shortly afterward, and 
buried it where found. 

“How shall I get on with these people? How will 
they regard me — alien interloper that I am? They 
have but to let me alone. I shall not trouble them. 
You and I, good friend, must go it alone, our term of 
prison-life here. We must suffice each other, for I 
have no stomach for these lean-faced, furtive-eyed 
natives of the soil. I like them not. Aye, you and I 
must serve our term together. Will it be long or short ? 
— *1 should live thirty years more,^ he said, our jailer- 
man, that never-to-be-forgotten night. ‘Thirty years 
more,’ said he, ‘perhaps fifty.’ And yet he may die 
to-night of an apoplexy. Will it be long or short? — 
Thirty years! Thirty and twenty-six make fifty-six. 
That’s getting into old age. What shall I be at fifty- 
six? Ah, stop it, stop it! We mustn’t let our minds 
stray into that field, friend. We must build a wall 
there, high and strong, with no gate, if we would not 
go mad — Come, it’s dark. The stars are out, and a 
cool breath, with fever in it, breathes up out of that 
mist-wrapped bottom. Into the house with us and 
light the lamp. In a week the box of books should 
be here. That will give us something for the candle 
hours. Meanwhile, the ‘katydids ’ — and didn’ts are 
asleep — I hear no more droning whisper from the east- 
ern oaks. Shall we follow where they lead? My bed 
waits in there, among the shadows of the farther room, 


68 


TOMMY CARTERET 


little Mrs. Satterlee’s bed. — I wonder if it is haunted. 
Good night, friend!” 

Oh, Tommy, Tommy! Here’s a new Tommy, 
indeed! I have read these first pages of your little 
journal-book many times over. They have made me 
laugh, and they have made me weep. Such an imposing 
little chapter. Tommy! Such literature! Were you 
quite, quite, honest, I’m wondering, when you so 
scornfully denied the ‘‘sneaking thought of eventual 
publication”? I seem to see you. Tommy, seated on 
your doorstep to the west, writing down sentence 
after sentence of lofty thought, and almost — almost 
forgetting your woe for satisfaction over its portrayal. 
I seem to hear a sort of inward smack of the lips over 
that grandiloquent bit about the “dim eyes of mem- 
ory.” Still, though I could have done it better my- 
self — and with far less rhetoric — I have chosen to let 
you open this portion of the story in your own words. 
And Tommy, you will forgive me, I know, if I poke a 
little fun at the words. God knows the time came soon 
enough when there was no fun to be found, not even 
by me who love my joke. Let’s laugh while we may. 
Tommy! Yet, though I chaff you, I’m applauding, 
too. It is a good, brave little chapter, this. No whin- 
ing, no cursing at fate — I should have railed, I know 
— and, best of all, in all your lofty paragraphs, in your 
most intimate self-searchings, there is no mention of 
Sibyl. The Carteret blood w£is at its best in you. I 
know what that silence cost. I know how you set your 
teeth and forced her from your thoughts. I see her. 
Tommy, standing just outside the wall, begging to 
come in — begging so hard, smiling so divinely! Aye, 
I know what it cost to stop your eyes and ears. 


CHAPTER VI 


Arabella Crowley from the Machine 

The case of books arrived duly, and with it boxes 
of other things — might quite as well be comfortable, 
though in hell,” said young Tommy. — ^It required 
three trips of the cart to town to fetch them all. Then 
there was a great hammering, and sawing, and driv- 
ing of nails in the cabin on the hill-top. This endured 
for two busy days, and, at the end. Tommy stood apart 
and wiped his brow. 

“Not bad, eh?” he said to the admirable Jared. 

The admirable Jared gave an imitation of a stork 
in a thoughtful moment. 

“It might be wuss,” he said cautiously. “Them 
little carpets is shorely handy — even if they don’t fit.” 
Young Tommy looked at his Persian rugs and laughed. 
“And them curtings in the doorway betwixt the two 
rooms,” pursued the admirable Jared, “now ain’t 
they a leetle bit wore out — faded-like?” The “cur- 
tings” were from Khorassan, in dull reds and browns 
and blues, blended exquisitely. “Winston’s store 
down to town,” said the critic, “has got curtings with 
flowers on ’em jest like life. Maybe they’d brisk the 
haouse up some if you felt’d you could afford ’em.” 

“We’ll think it over,” said young Tommy. “I ex- 
pect the house will need brisking up in time.” He 
ran his hand lovingly over the rows of books on their 
shelves, and rescued the late Marcus Aurelius from 
69 


70 


TOMMY CARTERET 


possible contamination beside the ^‘Heptameron’’ of 
Margaret of Navarre. 

“Was you expecting to read ’em all through from 
kiver to kiver?” demanded Jared in a tone of awe. 
“It’d take a right smart of a time, to be shore.” 

“I shall have a right smart of time,” said young 
Tommy. “These may keep me out of mischief. Any- 
how, sloth is one of the seven deadly sins. I’m told. 
It would never do to become slothful — now, would it ? ” 

The admirable Jared suspected that fun was being 
poked at him, and withdrew toward the stable, but he 
paused on the threshold to express unstinted approval 
of the “cheer.” Tommy had acquired a long steamer- 
chair of Indian cane with a foot-rest and an adjustable 
back. 

“That there cheer can a’most talk,” said the enthu- 
siastic Jared. “She’s the finest cheer I ever see. Any 
time ’at you die, Mr. Carter, I wish’t you’d will me 
that cheer.” 

Thus Tommy made his hell a comfortable hell with 
rugs, and a few pictures, and bits of brass or copper, 
and a noble store of books, both good and bad; and 
the disposal of all these things, the arranging and re- 
arranging, the making, as it were, of a little house for 
himself, tided him along very nicely for some days. 

Indeed, I think that in these first few weeks he was 
far from absolute unhappiness. The opening of his 
little journal has, to be sure, a gloomy and portentous 
atmosphere, but I have already said that I suspect 
Tommy here of an attempt to be literary. I do not 
think he was so melancholy as he sounds. He was 
very young, you must remember, and circumstances, 
cruel ones to be sure, had thrown him suddenly into 
an environment different from anything he had ever 


ARABELLA CROWLEY 


71 


known. He would not be the Tommy I know him to 
have been if this new environment had not had power 
to distract him. Add to this that he had done a big 
thing, a fine thing, in coming here. I think the exal- 
tation of that was slow to die. 

I doubt not it would be interesting, had you time, 
and I space, to live with Tommy in these early days, 
to know something of this strange land of hills and 
bottoms, and of these ‘4ean-faced, furtive-eyed natives 
of the soil” among whom he found himself; but this 
is the story of Tommy Carteret, not of the land of 
Egypt. We must not leave the picture quite unframed, 
lest you refuse to hang it so on your wall, but no 
over-wrought setting of gilt and plaster. Leave 
Egypt for another hand. This is the story of 
Tommy Carteret. 

I have said that I thought he was not all unhappy 
at first. I am casting about for the time — ^since there 
must always be a time of beginning — when the out- 
ward things failed of their power, and Tommy came 
face to face in the shadows with that fate which had 
been waiting, close at hand, to link her arm with his. 
I think the time was when Tommy, riding one morn- 
ing to the village, nine miles away, was given a cer- 
tain letter, which, all in a moment, set his heart fiercely 
to work and blurred his vision. He had been feeling 
that morning particularly fit. It was a cool, clear morn- 
ing, which promised, later on, a blazing day, but 
Tommy made an early start — with the dew, and as 
the mare laboured up the steep hills, or picked her way 
down them, stumbling among loose stones, he whistled 
cheerily to her, and refrained from criticism about 
the stumbling. He even burst into song— though 
he had no singing voice — when they trotted easily 


72 


TOMMY CARTERET 


through the level wood-flats where live things rustled 
in the undergrowth, making the mare prick her ears, 
and birds passed comments upon him from the branches 
overhead. He nodded a fraternal “ Howdy to the 
natives as he met them afoot or mounted, noting with- 
out the slightest resentment their curious stares, and 
when at last he reached the straggling, unlovely vil- 
lage, he did not sneer, as was his habit, but said to 
himself that it wasn't a bad little place, as country 
towns go — though this was the most barefaced flattery. 
The summer was in Tommy's veins, and cares stood 
away from him. 

A half-dozen of the village fathers sat in the square 
of shade before “Winston's," their chairs tilted back 
against the bit of iron railing. They said “Howdy" 
in a very friendly fashion to Tommy, as he dismounted, 
and asked him the purchase price of his leather putties. 
They had no especial love for the interloper, but he 
was an event in an eventless morning, and therefore 
to be welcomed. 

Tommy wanted, among other things, a clasp-knife 
of ample proportions and businesslike aspect. Win- 
ston, who had risen to go into the store with him, set 
out a box of them, and recounted the time-honoured 
jest about the gentleman from Kentucky, who, on be- 
ing shown a clasp-knife with two blades and a cork- 
screw, demanded, as more suitable to his uses, one 
with a single blade and two cork-screws. Young 
Tommy laughed with flattering appreciation — the 
summer was in his veins — and the gratified Winston 
was for raking up further ruins from the dead past, 
but checked himself. 

“Oh, I 'most forgot!" said he. “They's a letter 
and a telegraph for you-all. — Ben here goin' on three — 


ARABELLA CROWLEY 


73 


four days.” It might be explained that Winston’s was 
** general store” and post-office combined. 

Young Tommy ripped open the yellow envelope 
of the ‘Telegraph” with fingers that shook a bit. The 
thing was of no importance — a communication from 
the Chicago house which had sent him his books and 
rugs. But the superscription of the letter was in a stiff 
and crabbed old-fashioned hand, which sent the blood 
to Tommy’s face in a rush and drew it away again, 
leaving him white. Arabella Crowley’s hand! How 
did she know? It was as if old Arabella herself had 
stepped out from behind the sugar barrels and the 
molasses butt to confront him. How did she know? 
Tommy’s fingers twitched at the end of the envelope, 
eager to tear it open. Then he halted, and, after 
a moment, put the letter away slowly in an inner 
pocket. Aunt Arabella! He walked to the open door, 
his eyes fixed upon vacancy, and there once more 
halted and took the letter into his hands. He was 
oddly afraid of it. For a moment, he had a swift im- 
pulse to tear it to bits, unread, and his fingers actually 
strained at the tough paper, but there was no strength 
in them. How did she know, and what had she to 
say to him? Whatever it was, better to leave it un- 
said. He had been almost content a few moments 
before. This thing snatched him back — just the 
sight of old Arabella’s hand — into the shame and hor- 
ror and strain he had tried so hard to put from him. 

His troubled eyes roamed the dusty, unkempt street 
without, where the mounting sun already beat hot and 
brazen, but his mind was a thousand miles away on 
forbidden ground. Town people drifted past by one 
and two — coatless, round-shouldered men with the 
tramp’s slouching walk, slatternly women in sunbon- 


74 


TOMMY CARTERET 


nets, strangely attired children, bare-headed and bare- 
footed. Young Tommy’s eyes rested upon them, see- 
ing, but taking no note. Two young girls, gipsyish 
creatures, with their hair about their eyes in tangles, 
and ungirt waists, stopped to exchange pleasantries 
with the loungers before the store. A woman, dressed 
in a sort of parody of bygone fashions, a painted 
woman, mincing and pathetically fine, walked by, 
casting a sidelong glance. She, Winston explained, 
chuckling, was unique in being the village character 
who professed no character at all. Then another 
young woman, a girl, gipsyish again, but with a certain 
untutored, instinctive feeling for the suitable in attire — 
a cut above these villagers, surely, a handsome girl. 
A sheepish, sullen youth lagged half a step behind her, 
and evoked unconcealed derision from the seated 
loafers. 

“That there’s old Dave Canfield’s gal,” said Win- 
ston. “Lives nigh to you-all, jest acrost the little 
bottom on the Dutch Creek road. Old Dave’s got 
two gals — this is the least one — the other’s a widow 
woman.” 

“Eh?” said young Tommy, waking suddenly. 
“Eh, what? Yes, very hot. I must be getting toward 
— ^home, before the sun is too high. There is one more 
box to come down from those Chicago people. It 
should be here to-morrow, I think. I will send Jared 
in for it, with the cart, toward the end of the week. 

“Better hev a taste before ye go,” suggested Win- 
ston, and proffered the stone jug which stood in the 
shade without, convenient to the line of tilted chairs. 
Young Tommy politely tasted, and tried to preserve 
an immobile countenance, for the whiskey was un- 
speakable. Then he mounted the mare and turned 


ARABELLA CROWLEY 


75 


down the stretch of glaring white dust. The mare 
had her work cut out for her that day. Nine miles to 
town in the cool of the morning — then, almost at once, 
nine miles back in the grilling sun; but she was a strong 
beast, big of bone, well-fed, and up to much more 
than Tommy’s hundred and fifty pounds of weight. 
She could have borne him all day without complaint. 

He rode slowly, unmindful of the sun’s glare, those 
unseeing eyes of his fixed vacantly ahead. Once, at 
the outskirts of the town, he turned aside to allow a 
two-wheeled cart to pass in a whirl of dust. There 
were two people in the cart, a man and a woman, and 
young Tommy was dimly conscious that the woman 
turned in her seat to favour him with a deliberate stare, 
but his mind was away upon more important matters, 
and he gave no note. The woman was the girl Winston 
had pointed out as the least one of old Dave Can- 
field’s two daughters. Uphill and down young Tommy 
rode, through pleasant, odorous wood-roads, and along 
open spaces where the* sun’s glare lay quivering on the 
powdery dust, but he saw none of it, save with eyes 
which carried no message back to the brain. 

At Half-Breed Hill he put the mare away, directing 
Jared, whom he found in the kitchen, to rub her down, 
and, seated at his writing-table within, laid Arabella 
Crowley’s letter before him. He was afraid of it, but 
he could not have told why. In all probability, it con- 
tained no more than expressions of regret at his de- 
parture, and demanded, in Arabella’s forthright fash- 
ion, his reasons for so sudden a flight. He reasoned 
— very correctly, as afterward appeared — that Ara- 
bella had somehow wormed his whereabouts out of 
old Tommy, and there was every reason why she 
should be expected to write to him. Still, though he 


76 


TOMMY CARTERET 


could not have told you why, young Tommy was 
afraid. Perhaps — ah, there’s the clew, I fancy! — 
perhaps he was afraid, not so much of old Arabella’s 
letter as of himself. He had, up to this time, been 
very successful in keeping the home things out of 
mind, in pushing them back, as it were, by main 
strength. — A hopeless struggle. Tommy! No man’s 
strength is untiring. — He had had no letters at all, save 
one from the faithful Parkins, stating that the master, 
though still weak and unable to write, had recovered 
again. Yes, I think Tommy was afraid of himself. 

In any case, he hovered and hesitated over the letter, 
as one hovers back and forth in the street before the 
dentist’s office, and, after an hour of miserable inde- 
cision, put the thing aside till evening, and went for a 
tour of exploration along the wooded slopes above 
Dutch Creek. But in the evening, when his solitary 
dinner was done, when Jared had finished with the 
dishes and had called his good night through the cabin, 
when the sun had gone down*— again in a welter of 
blood — and the mists rose over the great bottom, young 
Tommy seated himself at the doorstep, and the en- 
velope of Arabella Crowley’s letter ripped under his 
slow fingers. He felt again the same odd, unreason- 
able dread. It was like casting a die for his life. 

The envelope was an unusually large, square one, 
and, between the sheets of the paper within, was a 
flat parcel, tissue wrapped, stiffer than the pages. 
Tommy laid this beside him until the letter should 
be read. 

‘T have just come from Washington Square,” be- 
gan old Arabella in her characteristically abrupt fash- 
ion, “and, from your father. Tommy, I have wormed 
some of the facts in this sad business. Never mind 


ARABELLA CROWLEY 


77 


how I managed it. He fancied that I already knew 
more than I did. Anyhow, I got from him enough to 
put together with certain things I really did know, and 
others I guessed. Tommy, dear, you are a brave lad, 
braver even than I thought you could be, but you are 
also a fool — [How like old Arabella!] for there is such 
a thing as carrying bravery and self-sacrifice far be- 
yond the limit of reason. However, Tommy, Ihn not 
going to scold. What’s done is done, and there is no 
turning back the clock. What we must face now is 
the future and how this thing is to be righted. I con- 
fess that I do not see how it is to be managed, but we’ll 
find a way, lad. We’ll find a way. We mmt, since 
I know you will make no effort yourself — Oh, Tommy, 
what a thing it was to do! — Your father has not yet 
written to you, I suppose. He’s shirking, as usual, 
for he’s weak — weak! Oh, yes! I can speak harshly 
of him to-day, though I’ve loved him — in a fashion — 
so long. I’m very sore and resentful, and, somehow 
(explain it if you can), humiliated in his humiliation. 
We can’t, we women, easily forgive a man we’ve cared 
for when he does a cowardly thing, even though we 
knew all along that he was a coward. I’ve forgiven 
him a* great deal, you know, at one time or another, 
but this I think I shall never forgive, though I shall 
always, so long as he and I live, have a certain tender- 
ness for him. 

‘‘By the way, since you will probably have been 
without news of him, he is still in his bed — ^you will 
picture old Parkins’s horror when I insisted upon see- 
ing him — and the thing has broken him. Tommy. He 
is an old man at last, he who dodged age so long. His 
hand shakes and his eyes are dull. He is well enough; 
he might be up and about if he chose, but I think he 


78 


TOMMY CARTERET 


shrinks, with all the feeling left in him, from the letter 
he knows he must write to you, and, therefore, pro- 
longs this illness to the last possibility. 

“ I have been talking to Sibyl since I came from the 
Square, and I have told her all I know about the mat- 
ter. At the end of this letter will be a line from her. 
She has asked me to inclose it. I cannot quite make 
her out. Tommy, she says so little, and hides so well — 
where did she learn it? — what she feels. Only, when 
I told her that you had gone into exile for something 
your father had done, she looked up quickly, and her 
eyes went very bright, and she said: 

*“Yes, yes! Tommy would do that!’ And at the 
end, when I had talked a long time, and she had sat 
quiet, she said: ^He is a brave, brave man, dearest. 
I should like him to know how brave I think he is.’ 
And that is all, save, perhaps, what she may have said 
to you in this sheet I am to inclose. Perhaps, if I 
were calmer, less incensed over the whole thing, less 
fresh from my scene with your father, I could have 
read her better. Somehow, I am certain that she cares 
more than I had thought, though she has given no evi- 
dence of it. She goes about as much as ever, but she 
does not laugh so much, I think. She has turned 
graver. — ^Another thing I am inclosing here. Sibyl 
does not know, but she would be glad, I believe, if she 
did. It is a photograph of her, made a month since. 
I have taken it from its card, the better to slip it into 
this envelope. Keep it by you, lad. It will be by way 
of an anchor, maybe. 

“Now I have written too much and must stop. I 
wanted you to know that I understand, and that Sibyl 
understands too. But one thing above all things. 
Tommy! Don’t give up hope that this matter will be 


AIL\BELLA CROWLEY 


79 


arranged. You have a strain of melancholy in you, 
a brooding strain. I have watched it since you were 
a boy. Don’t lose hope. Think of your exile as a 
thing to be tided over as best it can, not as a life to 
live. We shall have you at home again before long. 
That I know. 

‘‘So, for to-night, good bye. Write to me if you feel 
like it. I shall keep you informed of anything that 
seems encouraging here. I rather think something 
can be done, after a time, with the Hartwell man. 

“Do you remember that my poor old bones fore- 
boded evil on that night of the Devereuxs’ ball? 

“Good bye, dear lad! Don’t give up the ship. 

“Arabella Crowley.” 

Then young Tommy’s hand shook a little, as he 
turned the last page, and Sibyl’s inclosure lay in sight. 
It was very brief. 

“I want you to know that I’m glad. Tommy,” it 
said. “I should be glad even if I thought that this 
thing was to last forever. Oh, Tommy, you are 
braver and truer and more faithful than any other 
man in the world, and- I’m so proud of you! Keep 
a stout heart. Tommy, and don’t give up hope. Re- 
member always that we’re thinking of you and waiting 
for you to come back to us. 

“Sibyl.” 

Tommy’s hands, automaton-like, loosed the cord 
and tissue-paper from the other inclosure, and then a 
great choking gasp broke from him, and he bowed his 
head over Sibyl’s picture, calling upon it in mad, 
stumbling words as if it could hear him and under- 
stand. 

It was an hour later, when the swift darkness had 
fallen, that he rose and groped his way into the cabin 


80 


TOMMY CARTERET 


and made lights there. He sat down at his writing- 
table, and, pulling out a book, propped the picture of 
Sibyl Eliot against it in the glow from the lamps. Then 
he settled back in his chair, chin on breast, staring, 
and the girl in the picture smiled into his eyes — Sib’s 
grave, sweet smile — and seemed to say: 

‘T want you to know that I’m glad. Tommy, glad!” 
And again, presently: 

“Remember always that we’re thinking of you, and 
waiting for you to come back to us.” 

“Sib!” said Tommy Carteret aloud. “Oh, Sib, 
you’re so very beautiful!” And the girl in the picture 
smiled divinely. “Now you are a dear Tommy!” 
said Sibyl. 

It must have been a long time that he sat there 
staring at the picture on the writing-table — hours, 
probably. He could not have told when his thoughts 
slipped into the matter of old Arabella’s letter — the 
matter of his exile here in Egypt land. He had been 
afraid of the letter, strangely and without reason, and, 
now that he had read it, his fears were quite as strangely 
and unreasonably realised. Not only, it seemed, had 
the letter broken down the barrier which he had set 
up between present and past, loosing his long-deferred 
misery upon him in a sudden great flood, but in some 
quite inexplicable fashion it convinced him that the 
misery was to be life-long, that he should never re- 
turn to the old things. 

He could not, I am sure, have offered any argument 
in support of this position. He could have pointed to 
no word or phrase in Arabella Crowley’s letter which 
was capable of destroying hope. Arabella, indeed, 
had expressed herself strongly in the opposite extreme. 
Still the conviction fixed itself in him and grew, spread- 


ARABELLA CROWLEY 


81 


ing, like some strong, dark stain, over the walls of 
mind and soul, over the tentative experimental pictures 
the soul flashes before the mind^s eye, forecasting 
the future that is to come. 

‘'It is written in the books,’’ he said, that night, in 
communion with his friend and familiar, the journal. 
“This is the end — and the beginning. The end of 
Thomas Carteret, 2nd, and the birth of Thomas Car- 
ter, hermit, of Half-Breed Hill. I think I should put 
up a stone, outside on my hill-top — or should it stand 
in Washington Square, north? No, here, I think. 
For it is here, this night, that I have given up hope. 
I do not know why, but I am convinced with all the 
conviction there is in me that Tommy Carteret is dead. 
— ‘Pray for him!’ — I think I shall paint on my door- 
lintel that old motto, which was a king’s boast — alas! 
I must twist it into something quite different from a 
boast! — J^y suis; fy reste — I must write to Aunt Ara- 
bella, dear old soul, and tell her not to meddle. Who 
knows what might come if she should go stirring up 
my jailer’s suspicions? No; let sleeping dogs lie — 
let dead men rest in their graves — of exile. I shall not 
write to Sibyl. She must forget as soon as may be. 
And may that be soon, indeed! Everything decent 
and manly in me cries out for that — everything cowardly 
and fond begs her to remember. Yes, she’ll forget. 
Aunt Arabella was quite wrong about her caring. 
She didn’t care. She might have — thank God for 
that! — She was, maybe, on the edge of it. I could 
have won her, I think, but she’ll forget, for Tommy 
Carteret’s dead. Here’s Carter, of Half-Breed Hill, 
squeezing out a tear for him. Ah, let him rest, let him 
rest!” 

Later still in the night, when his pen trailed idle 


82 


TOMMY CARTERET 


upon the pages of the diary — his head too full of grim 
shapes and shadows for writing, he rose and took down 
from the wall, where it hung over his writing-table, a 
certain Japanese picture in an odd gold frame made 
like a temple gate, and he opened with his clasp-knife 
the back of the frame, taking out the print and slipping 
the photograph of Sibyl Eliot into its place. Then, 
with the frame hung once more upon the wall over the 
writing-table, he sat back again in his chair, chin on 
breast, and stared at it for a long time. 

‘‘That picture,’’ said Carter, of Half-Breed Hill, in 
his grim, dark humour, “is the picture of a girl who 
lived a very long time ago in a foreign country. I have 
cut it out of a book and hung it here, because it is beau- 
tiful, and because the young woman it represents must 
have been all that a man imagines and dreams of and 
invents when he is picturing the girl whom he will, 
one day, find and love and live for. — She must have 
been,” said Carter of Half-Breed Hill, “as lovely as 
she is beautiful. She must have been pitiful and kind 
and full of sweetness. She must have been one to 
laugh with you when you were gay — to romp with you, 
go on every sort of lark with you, take your hand and 
run away across the world, laughing because the world 
was good; and she must have been one quick to tears 
when you were down on your luck and the blue devils 
were at your throat. — She’d have crept in close to you,” 
said young Carteret, bitterly, “when you were sitting 
in the dusk, fagged-out or blue. She’d have laid her 
head against your shoulder, and slipped an arm about 
your neck, and told you that it — that it didn’t matter, 
that nothing mattered if only you two were together. 
She’d ^ cling to you, comforting you — mothering you, 
and her — hair would be soft against your cheek, and 


ARABELLA CROWLEY 


83 


you’d feel her heart beat over yours in the dark, and 
there wouldn’t be a damned thing in all the forsaken 
world that could touch you or harm you, just because 
she was there.” 

Oh, Tommy, Tommy! by what sudden magic had 
you learned all this ? Women had never been in your 
line. 

‘‘She must have been all that,” said young Tommy, 
nodding to the girl in the picture, “all that and more, 
more ! My God, how much more she, must have been! 
How many sweet, unspeakable things she must have 
been to the man she — she — cared about, if ever there 
was such a man. And so, because she was the loveli- 
est woman who ever smiled and wept under God’s 
sun, and because she — is dead, long since, because 
she lived in quite another world, I have hung her pic- 
ture here, as one might hang a Madonna. 

“There is no impertinence in it,” he said, appealing 
a bit anxiously, as it were, to the girl in the picture. 
“I have never known you. We — don’t live on the 
same planet at all. You will never see me, nor I you. 
There is no impertinence in it. You’re — safe there 
in your temple gate. It’s a — shrine, sort of. I only 
want to — look at you, sometimes.” 

What was it old Arabella Crowley’s letter had said ? 
— “Keep it by you, lad. It will be by way of an an- 
chor, maybe.” 

“‘An anchor?’” said young Carter, of Half-Breed 
Hill, and shook a slow head. “No, for I’m anchored 
to nothing save my hill-top, here. No, this is not the 
picture of any girl in that world out yonder. It is a 
goddess in a temple gate. A goddess in a temple gate 
is no anchor, but a star very many thousands of miles 
away. Looking up through the pit’s mouth, one may 


84 


TOMMY CARTERET 


see it, but stars are beyond reach, Aunt Arabella, far 
beyond reach.” 

He dropped once more into his moody silence, staring 
under his brows at the picture of Sibyl Eliot, and so, 
by turns talking and staring, he sat until the lamps 
burned low, and finally went out with an evil smell, 
and the dawn peered in at the windows, chill and grey. 


CHAPTER VII 


Tommy Sows the Wind 

So NOW you know when it was that Tommy gave 
up hope — *‘when,” I say; not ‘^why.’^ Tommy himself 
could not have told you why. It was, I think, one 
more blind move in that extraordinary game of mis- 
chance. I think Fate had been waiting for it, biding 
her time among the shadows. Now at last she must 
have linked her arm in Tommy’s and said to him: 

‘‘Come, friend I we’ll go a-gathering thistles.” 

It was a week after the coming of Arabella Crowley’s 
letter, and it had not been a good week for Tommy. 
The physicians and surgeons say that, when a man has 
suddenly lost a limb, or gone blind, or found himself, 
all at once, condemned to a bedridden life, the mind 
requires an astonishingly short time to readjust itself, 
to accept the new conditions. That covers, though, 
only the first fierce, futile rebellion, the screaming and 
cursing, the frenzy of beating one’s head against the 
wall. It does not reach the after-ache, the slow, hard- 
wrung bitterness, the sleepless nights of staring into 
the dark, and daring God to strike in faint hope that 
He will accept the dare. 

Tommy had his hours of frenzy, that I know. He 
was very young, you will remember, and he knew only 
too well the life that lay beyond the outer wall — the 
life to which he had said he was dead. He had his 
hours of panic when he looked forward over the years 
85 


86 


TOMMY CARTERET 


to come, and his hours of desperate planning to escape, 
to set the blame where blame belonged, and reclaim 
his birthright. He had his hours (these worst of all) 
of looking old Tommy Carteret in the wavering, shift- 
ing eyes and despising him for the coward he was. 
But, out of it all, like the blind man new stricken or 
the maimed new healed, he came, toward the week’s 
end, into the second stage, the slow, hand-wrung bit- 
terness, the apathy that scarcely cares. 

It was just as dusk was gathering, of a certain 
evening, that Tommy set forth, his arm linked with 
Fate’s arm. It had been a hot, still day, but, with 
the sun’s setting, a bit of breeze bore up out of the hol- 
low bottoms and faintly stirred the leaves, stirred those 
inevitable veils of wreathing mist which hung over the 
lowland. Tommy stood at his doorstep and turned 
his face to the breeze. 

“A chair here?” he debated, “or a bit of a stroll? 
A bit of a stroll through the wood-road yonder, I should 
think.” He thought that he himself chose the wood- 
road. 

Now, Half-Breed Hill was not an isolated hill — an 
island in the ocean of bottom; it was a tiny spur thrust 
out westward from the great range which trended 
roughly north and south, so that, walking inward along 
the spine of his ridge, but a few rods. Tommy leaped 
the bars of the worm-fence and was in the wood-road. 
It was a lane flanked with undergrowth and high-arched 
with trees that met overhead. There were good sum- 
mer smells abroad, spicy, aromatic smells, a blended 
essence of dust and green things growing, a scent of 
spruce and pine, a hint of smoke from a stump burning 
somewhere far away. It was a church aisle, narrow 
and high and gloomy, whose roof-beams tren^bled and 


TOMMY SOWS THE WIND 


87 


rang with the clamour of the '' katydids” making ready 
for sleep. It was a clamour that filled the air, harsh, 
rasping, and discordant. 

‘‘Good!” said young Tommy, striding down his 
darkened aisle. “Good! Keep it up. I like to hear 
you.” Indeed, the noise was so shrill, so unceasing, 
that it seemed to still even thought. I think that was 
why Tommy liked it. 

A hare scuttled across the lane, almost under his 
feet, and a little black snake, busied about her affairs, 
drew back against the fringe of undergrowth in an 
annoyed manner, and made faces at him as if he had 
no right there. Then the Fate who walked beside 
shook his arm gently and said, 

“Don’t you hear something?” 

“What’s that?” said young Tommy, turning his 
head. It seemed to him that, through the all- 
pervading rasp and drone of the “katydids,” he heard 
another sound, a very different sound, lower down to 
the right. Listening intently, he held up one hand, as 
if he would beg those clamorous insects to be still for a 
moment. 

“Somebody’s hurt,” he said at last, “or maybe it’s 
an animal,” and he turned to the right, peering ahead 
of him through the half-gloom as he went. He 
found that a narrower lane branched here from the 
road, an unused lane, one would say, for it was over- 
grown with turf and little shrubs. A few steps on- 
ward he reached a gate, made in the usual fashion — 
three sliding bars of trimmed saplings — and, just be- 
yond this gate, something white stirred upon the ground 
and, at intervals, called out in a weak, faint tone. 

“A woman!” cried young Tommy. “The devil; a 
woman ! ” He vaulted the bars of the gate and dropped 


88 


TOMMY CARTERET 


upon his knees beside the huddled figure, which writhed 
and twisted among the tall grasses. One of the wo- 
man’s arms was under her, as she lay, and the other 
arm she was restlessly moving to and fro, beating the 
air as if she were in a delirium or in unbearable pain. 
Tommy caught the waving hand in his and bent down, 
peering into the woman’s face. 

‘'What is it?” he said. “Are you hurt? Have you 
fallen? What is the matter?” 

“The — fence,” said the woman in a dry, gasping 
whisper. “I — tried to — climb — over and I — fell. My 
skirt caught. I’ve ben — a-calling for — hours.” 

“Ah!” said young Tommy cheerfully, “we’ll soon 
have you right again. I expect you struck on your 
head. Just let me get an arm under your waist to 
lift you up.” He slipped his arm under the woman’s 
body, but, as his hand touched and moved the arm 
which had been pinioned under her weight, she 
screamed suddenly and fainted quite away. 

“The devil!” said young Tommy again. “That’s 
nasty. There’s no water near. You’ll have to come 
to when you’re jolly well ready.” He sat back on his 
knees scowling thoughtfully at the motionless figure 
before him, and at the fence from which the woman 
had fallen. He noted that the edge of her skirt was 
still caught upon a splinter which projected from one of 
the bars. 

“Now, let’s think it over,” he said. You fell for- 
ward, didn’t you, and that thing held your skirt ? You 
must have pitched on one shoulder. Collar-bone 
smashed, probably. Have a look.” He turned the 
woman over upon her back, working quickly, before 
she should recover her senses, and ran his fingers along 
the shoulder. 


TOMMY SOWS THE WIND 


“Collar-bone!” he said. “What^s to do?” He 
looked round him frowning and then, with a quick nod, 
began to gather twigs and small branches heavily cov- 
ered with leaves. These he made into a sort of cushion, 
compact but soft. He slipped off the leather belt which 
he had been wearing and, tucking his cushion of leaves 
well up under the arm-pit of the injured shoulder, bound 
the arm fast to the body with the elbow bent so that the 
hand also lay under the belt across the woman’s breast. 
Then, still kneeling on the ground, he took his broad- 
rimmed Panama hat and began vigorously to fan the 
woman, striking her face lightly with the flexible straw. 
You see, young Tommy had played football in his 
college days and knew something about injuries. 

The woman came to her senses, gasping and twisting 
her face to avoid the flapping hat with which Tommy 
painstakingly belaboured her. 

“It — don’t hurt so — much, now,” she said in a whis- 
per. 

“ No,” said young Tommy, “ it wouldn’t. It’s bound 
up. Think you could manage to walk if I hold you 
steady ? I think we’d best make for my cabin on Half- 
Breed Hill. It’s the nearest house. I’ll make you 
comfortable there and then we’ll see about getting you 
to your home.” 

The woman gave a quick exclamation when young 
Tommy said “Half-Breed Hill,” and turned her head a 
bit to look at him. 

“Oh!” she said, “ it’s— t/ow.? ” 

“Ye-es,” said young Tommy. “Yes. I think so. 
May I ask whom you mean by ‘you’ ?” 

“It’s Mr. — Carter,” said the woman, “the — city man 
that’s living in Satterlee’s house on Half-Breed Hill?” 

“Quite right,” said the city man. “So we — er — have 


90 


TOMMY CARTERET 


I had the pleasure of meeting — it’s a bit dark here, you 
know. I hadn’t recognised you.” He leaned forward, 
peering through the half-gloom into the face below him, 
and shook a puzzled head. It seemed to him that some- 
where he had seen the face before, but where or when 
he did not know. The woman was very evidently 
young, and, doubtless, she must be called handsome. 

“I’m Mariana Canfield,” she said. 

“Ah!” said young Tommy, and, on the instant, the 
picture of a glaring, sun-baked village street came to 
him, a row of tilted chairs, a girl, gipsyish and hand- 
some — a cut above these villagers, certainly — an apolo- 
getic young man who lagged half a step behind and was 
chaffed by the jury sitting at Winston’s. 

“You’re one of Dave Canfield’s daughters,” said 
Tommy, “the least one. You live on the Dutch Creek 
road.” 

“Yes,” said the girl, stirring on the ground before 
him, and she laughed a little, in the dark, but the laugh 
ended in a smothered groan. 

“I — can walk, I guess,” she said. “I’ll have to.” 

Young Tommy took down the bars from the gate 
and bent once more over Dave Canfield’s least daugh- 
ter. He slipped an arm under her waist and showed 
her how she could help by putting one of her arms over 
his shoulder and about his neck. Then he lifted her 
very gently to her feet and, still holding her so that she 
should not stumble and jar the injured shoulder, moved 
slowly up the wood-road toward Half-Breed Hill. At 
the door of the cabin the steamer chair, admired of the 
man Jared, lay empty and inviting. Tommy let the 
girl down into it with care. 

“Just wait here a moment,” said he. “I must fetch 
my flask. That pull down through the bottom and up 


TOMMY SOWS THE WIND 


91 


your hill won’t be an easy one. You will need a bit 
of Dutch courage to make it.” He brought his flask 
from the room inside and filled a little glass from it. 
Then he held the glass to the girl’s lips. 

‘‘Drink it,” he said. “Drink all of it!” But the 
girl moved her head quickly aside and stared up into his 
face with eyes that were full of alarm and fear. 

“Drink it!” said young Tommy gently. “It won’t 
hurt you. You’ll need it.” And, after a moment, the 
girl’s eyes dropped, and she drank the brandy to the end. 
Tommy, who had a glass of water ready for the cough 
and splutter he expected, was somewhat scandalised to 
observe that the strong spirits might have been milk 
from the easy fashion in which they were despatched. 

“Now, to get you home!” he said. “Ready? We 
shall make it without trouble, I think. It’s all right if 
we don’t jar your shoulder.” 

They made it, though hardly without trouble. They 
were forced to halt every few moments for rest on their 
way down the steep hillside, but the girl made no com- 
plaint, in spite of the pain she must constantly have 
suffered. She was a plucky girl. Tommy noticed, as 
they stopped once to sit down on a stump, that her 
forehead was wet and her lips pinched and drawn. 

“By Jove, you’re brave!” he cried. “It’s hurting 
cruelly, isn’t it ? By Jove, you’re plucky! It won’t be 
so bad now, across the bottom and up the hill. It’s the 
coming down that shakes one.” And, indeed, their 
progress for the rest of the way was much easier, but, 
as they neared the top of the hill and had only a few 
more yards to go, the girl all at once stumbled, catching 
her foot in a vine that she could not see for the dusk, 
and, swinging half about, fell against Tommy, striking 
upon her injured arm and shoulder. She gave a quick. 


92 


TOMMY CARTERET 


sharp cry, and young Tommy felt her heavy and slack 
in his arms. She had once more fainted quite away, 
with the pain. 

He had it in mind to shout for assistance, for he knew 
that he must be very near Canfield's house, but instead 
he took the girl across his arms before him — he was 
very strong, and she was not a large woman — and so 
carried her across the road at the hill's crest, and in 
through the little open gate beyond. 

A short path across the unkempt turf led directly to a 
covered porch at the side of the house, but to the west- 
ward, where a door stood open above an uncovered 
doorstep, a man sat, iron-gray, gaunt, and sullen-eyed, 
staring idly across the misty bottom. Young Tommy 
called out to him, ‘‘Lend a hand, please!" and turned 
his steps in that direction. The man rose slowly, and, 
when he saw his daughter lying slack across Tommy 
Carteret's arms, he started forward with a little in- 
articulate cry, and his hard face worked strangely for 
an instant. 

“She's — daid?" he demanded. 

“Dead?" said young Tommy. “Nonsense! She 
has fainted away. She fell off a fence and hurt her 
shoulder. She has fainted away with the pain. Help 
me get her into the house, please. I can't hold her 
much longer." 

But the other man drew back a step and stood before 
the open doorway. 

“ I dun'no," he said, looking under his brows at young 
Tommy Carteret. 

Tommy made a little sound of exasperation. 

“You're Canfield, I suppose?" he said sharply. 
“This is your daughter?" 

“It waSy” said the older man, still with his sullen eyes 


TOMMY SOWS THE WIND 


93 


fixed upon young Tommy’s face. '‘How do I loiow ’at 
you-all is a-tellin’ the truth ? ” he said. " What you ben 
a-doin’ with my daughter? What you a-bringin’ her 
hyuh lookin’ like she was daid for?” 

Tommy laid the girl’s heavy body down upon the 
turf at his feet and over it stared into the other man’s 
black eyes. For a moment or two his mind could not 
probe the tortuous depths and realise the miserable 
blackness of the other’s thought. This sort of man 
was quite new to him. But when at last he understood, 
young Tommy’s face was not reassuring to see. It 
went red and then quickly white, as always when he was 
very angry, and his chin came forward a bit rather like 
a bulldog’s chin. 

"Oh, you blackguard!” said young Tommy into the 
other man’s sullen face. "Oh, you damned black- 
guard I ” 

He stooped once more over the still body of Mariana 
Canfield and, raising it in his arms, bore it in through 
the open door, shoving the other man aside with his 
shoulder. It would have been a singularly unfortunate 
thing for old Dave Canfield to try to stop the stranger 
just then, and it may be that he knew it. Inside the 
house a lamp burned dim against one wall, over a cheap 
cottage organ, and spread a half-light through the little 
room. Young Tommy laid the girl down upon the 
floor and pulled a cushion from a near-by sofa to slip 
under her head. From an inner room a thin, little, 
bent-over, big-eyed woman appeared and, when she 
saw what lay upon the floor, started forward with a sob- 
bing cry. Old Dave Canfield from the doorway called 
her back. 

"You stay where you be!” he said harshly. "I want 
to know somethin’ mo’ about this hyuh business.” 


94 


TOMMY CARTERET 


Young Carteret turned upon one knee and faced him 
for an instant in silence. 

Bring some water and a glass!” he said over his 
shoulder to the woman, and the woman slunk back into 
the farther room, reappearing presently with a jug of 
water and a thick glass. Then she dropped upon her 
knees on the floor, moaning softly to herself and wring- 
ing her hands together. 

Don’t be alarmed,” said young Tommy; “she has 
only fainted. We’ll have her out of it in a moment.” 
He dipped his fingers in the cold water, sprinkling the 
girl’s brow, and, as she did not immediately respond, 
half filled the glass and, drawing back a pace, threw the 
water sharply into her face, while the woman, kneeling 
beyond, cried out in protest. The girl came to her 
senses shivering and catching with her hands. After a 
moment she opened her eyes and smiled faintly at young 
Carteret. 

“ I — ^reckon I swooned,” she said. 

“I reckon you did,” said young Tommy, “but we’re 
safe at home now, and it’s all right.” He rose to his 
feet and spoke to the grim figure in the doorway. 

“You will have to have a doctor at once,” he said. 
“The collar-bone is broken and must be set and band- 
aged and cared for. “Is there a doctor near?” A 
young lad of ten or twelve had come into the room when 
Mrs. Canfield brought the jug of water, and he spoke 
up with shrill eagerness. 

“They’s a doctor two mile down the Dutch Creek 
road, suh I” he said. “I’ll fetch him. I’ll saddle Ben 
an’ git him hyuh in a hour.” 

“Right, Oh!” said young Tommy. “Off with you, 
then! The sooner you can have your doctor man here 
the better.” The lad made for the door, but Dave 


TOMMY SOWS THE WIND 


95 


Canfield caught him by the shoulder and threw him back 
into the room. Then he turned lowering to young 
Carteret. 

‘‘Maybe you think 'at this hyuh is you’ haouse an’ 
you’ fambly,” he said, nodding. “Well, it ain’t, not 
whilst I’m alive. You won’t send for no doctors, an’ 
you won’t do no meddlin’ in we-all’s affairs. We-all 
can git along right well without any city man a-bringin’ 
us home in his arms. What you been a-doin’ with my 
daughter? That’s what I want for to know.” 

Young Tommy moved a step nearer and his face was 
white in the dim lamplight. 

“You will stand aside and let that boy go for the 
doctor,” said he, “or I will first half kill you with my 
hands, and then throw you off your own hill-top. Your 
daughter has broken a bone in her shoulder, do you 
understand ? That bone must be set. As for the rest 
of your infernal nonsense, we will talk that over later. 

Only, I’ll say this much ” But the girl, sitting up 

on the floor in her mother’s arms, interrupted him, and 
Tommy turned to watch her. Her eyes were fixed 
upon her father’s face, and they were wide and bright, 
and full of an angry scorn. 

“If you was anything but an ornery dog,” she said, 
“you’d shut yo’ mouth an’ do as this gen’leman tells you. 
You’re a right nice grateful sort of parent, ain’t you ? I 
fall off a fence a-goin’ ovuh to Miller’s for aigs, an’ this 
gen’leman fin’s me and ha’f kills himself a-carryin’ me 
home when I’ve swooned away. Then you stan’s up 
an’ growls at him like a mongrel pup. Do you know 
what he’s done ? He’s saved my life. Ef I’d ’a’ had to 
be out thuh all night long, I’d cert’nly ben daid befo’ 
mawnin’. You are a right fine specimeji of man, ain’t 
you?” 


96 


TOMMY CARTERET 


Dave Canfield turned abruptly and left the room. 
He was muttering to himself as he went, but his voice 
was too low for any of those in the room to make out 
what he said. As soon as he was out of sight, the young 
lad started up again. 

'T’ll fetch the doctor, suh,” he cried to Tommy Car- 
teret, and slipped out of the room by another way. 
Tommy turned once more to the girl, who sat held up in 
her mother’s arms. 

“Never mind about your — father,” he said. “I’m 
sure I don’t mind. He didn’t quite — didn’t quite under- 
stand, I expect. There’s nothing more to do, now, 
until the doctor comes. Just keep perfectly still. I 
should lie down again. If you feel faint, drink a bit 
more brandy. I’ll leave the flask.” The girl tried to 
stammer something about her gratitude and about how 
sorry she was that her father was a dog, but Tommy 
stopped her, laughing, and got out of the house as 
quickly as he could. 

Down at the little open gate by the road, one tall and 
gaunt and sullen waited in the starlight. Tommy was 
for passing with a curt nod, but the elder man spoke. 

“We-uns don’t hanker for no city folks down hyuh,” 
he said abruptly. “What you want to come hyuh to 
live for? You ain’t wanted.” There was a defiant, 
uncompromising fierceness about the man that held 
young Carteret against his will — puzzled him even in 
the midst of his exasperation. The spirit was some- 
thing that he could not reach or comprehend. Race- 
prejudice he had met in many countries. That was 
easy to fathom. An Englishman despised a French- 
man. A Frenchman insanely hated an Englishman. 
Italians and Austrians sat at the head of the Adriatic, 
each watching a chance to knife the other, There was 


TOMMY SOWS THE WIND 


97 


a reason for all that. It was even a good thing. In- 
tolerant pride in one’s own land, intolerant hatred of 
things foreign, made good citizens. Doubtless there 
was a reason for this, too, but what reason? Young 
Tommy could not understand that to this benighted 
hill man he was more of a foreigner than if he had 
been a Hungarian or a Greek. 

‘‘Look here!” he said shortly. “I bought a piece of 
land on that hill range yonder, a little while ago. It is 
my impression that I own it. Do you happen to have 
any claim on it?” He paused, hoping for an answer, 
but the elder man only looked at him under his shaggy 
brows. “If not,” said young Tommy, “I presume 
that it is mine, and I shall live on it, so long as I please, 
without asking permission of you or of any of your silly 
friends. I didn’t inquire, on coming here, whether or 
not I was hankered for, and I don’t care. It is strictly 
my own business, I take it, where I live. As for this 
affair of to-night, allow me to say that your daughter, 
in expressing her opinion a few moments ago, expressed 
mine also — expressed it admirably.” 

He went through the gate, leaving the other man 
standing there, and, crossing the road, made his way 
down through the bottom and up Half-Breed Hill to 
his cabin. He was quite aware that his speech had 
not been a wise one, or calculated to turn away wrath, 
but he was angry and didn’t care. He laughed a little, 
climbing Half-Breed Hill in the dark, as the childish 
absurdity of the whole thing was borne in upon him, 
but even while he laughed he frowned and shook his 
head, for, being very young, he liked to find reasons 
for things, and he could find no reason whatever for 
this sullen hostility where gratitude should have been. 
Indeed, he could not have been expected, at that time. 


98 


TOMMY CARTERET 


to know that the hostility was too natural and too in- 
stinctive to be within the realm of reason at all. 

He laughed again as he made lights in the cabin. 
He was thinking of the girFs angry speech to her father. 
It appeared that in his unmarried daughter old Dave 
Canfield had his match and more. It had not been 
a filial speech, but surely it went to the point, and with 
small mincing of language. 

‘'Odd!” said Tommy to himself, “how she dropped 
into the vernacular when she began to rate the old 
bounder! She’d spoken very fair English to me. 
Must have been to school somewhere. Pretty, rather 
— what? — Gipsy, sort of! — looked rather fine when 
she was angry. — Jove, what a hole for a girl to live in! 
— ^Plucky she was, too. — Ah, well! I shall have to go 
over there to-morrow, I expect, to inquire how she’s 
getting on. — Only civil. — ^Then it’s over with.” 

He dropped into a chair before his writing-table, 
and his eyes met the eyes of the Goddess in the temple 
gate. It was wonderful to see how swiftly the whole 
expression of his face could change. 

“Then it’s over with,” Tommy’s lips repeated me- 
chanically, while his eyes smiled toward the temple 
gate. 

Oh, no, it wasn’t, Tommy! 


CHAPTER VIII 


But the Whirlwind Bides Its Time 

Toward midnight he stirred — I think he had been 
half-drowsing in his chair. I know he had long since 
forgotten Mariana Canfield and her morose parent — 
and he filled a pipe, and pulled out from its shelf his 
green-bound volume of Frangois Villon and read aloud 
to himself. Villon marched with his mood in these 
lonely nights. Villon had sounded every depth that 
a human soul can probe, and he knew a great deal 
about souls and depths — heights, too, sometimes — a 
great deal which Tommy, in his solitude, was begin- 
ning to learn. It is of common report that one misery 
cleaves to his brother. 

Tommy wasted a futile hour trying to translate into 
English verse the untranslatable ‘^Ballade des belles 
Dames du Temps jadis ” — what a new Tommy Car- 
teret have we here! Writing verse! — but the snows 
and the girls of yesterday were not a fortunate subject 
to hit upon. One^s eyes too instinctively rose to the 
temple gate where yesterday sat and smiled. Aye, 
young Tommy was learning the depths. 

Later, restlessly asleep in his fateful bed, dreams 
horrible and portentous came to him. A presence 
stood upright against the gloom at his feet, a stark 
presence. At first it was dead Mrs. Satterlee with her 
dead child across her arms, and blank eyes staring. 
Then, somehow, it became Dave Canfield’s least daugh- 
99 


LofC. 


100 


TOMMY CARTERET 


ter who looked upon him strangely, and spoke, stretch- 
ing out her arms, but he could not hear what she said. 
Old Tommy Carteret came there, bent and furtive- 
eyed, and slunk away. Hartwell, with his square 
face and outthrust lower lip, laughed soundlessly and 
never quite went, for one of his fierce eyes shone through 
the darkness — a single, sleepless, unwinking, unwaver- 
ing eye which remained always on watch through many 
eternities. It was writhing and crouching to escape 
the calm stare that Tommy awoke with the late morn- 
ing sun hot in his eyes and an evil taste in his mouth. 

The admirable Jared, who must have risen with the 
dawn, appeared from town as Tommy finished shaving. 
He bore food supplies and a letter, upon which the 
master of Half-Breed Hill gazed frowning for some 
time before he opened it. It was from old Tommy 
Carteret — ^his first word, though nearly five weeks had 
passed. The letter was very like old Tommy — old 
Tommy at his worst and weakest. The effort its 
composition had cost him stood out, as it were, in high 
relief. He spoke of having scarcely as yet left his 
bed — of great weakness, of the almost fatal shock this 
dreadful business had inflicted upon him. He hinted 
vaguely at a fixed intention of setting the matter right 
as soon as he was well and about. He became slightly 
hysterical over his son’s noble self-sacrifice, and wan- 
deringly bitter at the mis judgment he himself had suf- 
fered. There was, in all the pages, no hint of real 
manliness, no frank acknowledgment of guilt or offer 
to bear that guilt. Oh, it was old Tommy at his very 
worst! I have the letter here before me now, and, 
as I read it, my torn little shreds of love and fondness 
for the old beau almost turn to bitterness. I cannot 
quite forgive him that letter. The Carteret strain was 


THE WHIRLWIND BIDES ITS TIME 101 


so thin in you, old Tommy! You were such a miserable 
coward! I seem to see in the letter something almost 
like a querulous complaint, something that half voices 
a sense of abuse, as if you felt ill-treated. Shame, 
Tommy! Shame! You couldn’t forgive that boy of 
yours for playing the man while you played the cur, 
could you? 

Young Tommy did not read the letter through to 
the end. He was in no mood for it. The night had 
left him rasped and sore. Half-way finished, he threw 
it aside with an exclamation of impatience, and a voice 
within him cried scornfully: ‘‘Oh, coward! coward!” 
but he set quick guard over the voice. Old Tommy 
was, after all, his father. In another mood he would 
condone this letter as he had condoned other things, 
laugh at it a little, throw a strong protecting arm across 
the good old governor’s shoulders — this figuratively 
— for the governor was weak, and a man can’t be 
stronger than he’s made. 

By the time he had finished his coffee it was nearly 
eleven o’clock. He had had vaguely in mind a ride 
for the afternoon — ^Tommy habitually risked his head 
in the blazing afternoon sun as no native would have 
done — and he said to himself, staring across the Little 
Bottom, that, if he was to make a civil inquiry after 
his patient of last night, now was the time to be about it. 

He set out unwillingly, and with a strong sense of 
distaste for his errand. In the first place, he had not 
the slightest interest in the well-being of Mariana Can- 
field. It had happened to come into his way to do her 
a service. He had done that service to the best of his 
ability, and that, to his notion, ended the matter. 
Further, while his first anger at old Dave Canfield’s 
senseless hostility of demeanour had evaporated, he 


102 


TOMMY CARTERET 


was left with a feeling of half-amused disgust, and no 
desire whatever to find himself again involved in so 
absurd a scene. Further still, the night, as I have 
already said, had left him rasped and sore, irritable 
and nervous — in his darkest humour. The sun lay 
hot and blazing about him, but to young Tommy’s 
eyes there hung between heaven and earth a gray pall. 
The sunlight was not good sunlight, yellow and liv- 
ing, but a pallid glare like the calcium on a stage 
scene. 

Most men of a strongly melancholy turn — men sep- 
arated by some great blow from the world about them 
and so driven to constant introspection, have an odd 
and rather melodramatic sense of dual identity. While 
one man walks through the more or less normal ac- 
tivity of life, doing, more or less normally, the thousand 
normal things required of him by position and cir- 
cumstance, another man stands beside, silent, unsmil- 
ing, uninterested, watching with passionless eyes. 
Into this odd sense of duality young Tommy, bereft 
of hope, face to face with solitude and his own dark 
thoughts, had come, straight and unhesitating. That 
dormant strain of melancholy which Arabella Crow- 
ley’s keen old eyes had seen in him, as a lad, had not 
been given him idly. Dormant once, it was dominant 
now. Aye, here was a new Tommy — to my sorrow! 
Still, I would not have you, from this, think that he 
went always gloom-invested. Far from it. To the 
admirable Jared, to Winston, and the jury of tipped-up 
chairs in the village, he turned a side of good nature, 
of chaff and easy banter, of patient interest in the face 
of dull narrative, which was very like the Tommy of 
old days. It was when alone with his thoughts and 
imaginings, or when such a night as this just passed 


THE WHIRLWIND BIDES ITS TIME 103 


bad racked him, that the still mask went on over 
Tommy’s young face, and that other self, silent, un- 
smiling, uninterested, stood beside, watching with 
passionless eyes. 

He stood this morning, in the dim sunlight, coldly 
critical, and spoke to the Tommy who stared, scowling, 
across the Little Bottom. 

“Why trouble about it?” he said. “Why bother to 
be civil to these heathen? They won’t know the dif- 
ference, anyhow?” 

Tommy shook a stubborn head. 

“I’ve got to go,” said he. “I expect I’m being 
civil on my own account, not theirs. Anyhow, I shall 
go.” Still, that, I fancy, was not really Tommy’s 
speech, but Fate’s. Tommy was not playing his own 
hand just then. 

“Oh, well! it isn’t as if it mattered,” said the man 
who stood beside — wearily indifferent. “ Nothing mat- 
ters.” And Tommy crossed the bottom. 

He mounted the opposite hill, and, across the road 
at its top, let himself in through the Canfield gate. He 
went at once toward the covered side-porch, for there 
were people there, and as he came nearer he saw that a 
sort of pallet had been laid upon four stools, and the 
injured girl thus brought into the open air. As he 
approached, a young woman who had been sitting 
beside the invalid rose and went into the house, and 
Mariana Canfield turned her head toward him in 
greeting. 

“The doctor said I might be out hyuh,” she ex- 
plained. “ It’s so hot in the house ’at I couldn’t sca’sely 
breathe thuh.” She spoke hurriedly, as if to hide a 
certain embarrassment, and her face was deeply flushed. 
Young Tommy, in the midst of polite inquiries as to 
her comfort, wondered why. 


104 


TOMMY CARTERET 


“Em right ashamed to have you-all see me like — 
like this/’ she went on ; didn’t expect to see any one.” 

‘‘Like what?” said young Tommy; “with a broken 
collar-bone? There’s nothing to be ashamed of in a 
broken collar-bone. You couldn’t help that.” 

“Like — this, hyuhl” said the girl, making a little 
gesture with her free hand. 

“Oh!” said young Tommy coldly. He was rather 
annoyed, for it seemed to him such a very silly affec- 
tation for this sort of young woman to drag in. He 
began to be sorry that he had come. 

“I shouldn’t be disturbed about that, if I were you,” 
he said. “Invalids are expected to appear more or 
less en deshabille,” Then he turned his annoyance 
upon himself because he had spoken without think- 
ing, and he saw that the girl did not know what he 
meant by en deshabille. 

He was further put out of temper when she began 
at once to apologise for her father’s conduct of last 
evening. He thought that would far best be let alone. 

“I assure you again,” he said, a bit formally, “that 
it doesn’t in the least matter. Mr. — Canfield misun- 
derstood. That was all.” He dropped into an un- 
comfortable silence, searching his mind for some ade- 
quate method of getting away at once, without seeming 
rudely abrupt. 

“I expect,” he began presently, “that I ought not 
to encourage you to talk. I expect you ought to be 

rather quiet for a day or two. I only came over ” 

He halted in the middle of his sentence, for his eyes 
happened to meet the girl’s eyes, and something in 
their gaze — a sort of forlorn loneliness, a sort of ap- 
peal that was almost piteous, silenced him. 

“You ain’t— you aren’t going to go?” said the girl, 


THE WHIRLWIND BIDES ITS TIME 105 


and there was an odd something in her voice that had 
been in her eyes also. “You aren^t going to go right 
now ? I — the doctor said I might talk. I was wishing 
you could — stay a little while.” 

“Why, so I will!” said young Tommy gently. “I — 
was afraid of tiring you, you know.” He smiled across 
at her as he sat on the edge of the porch, and the girl 
caught her breath sharply and said “Ooh!” almost as 
if something had hurt her suddenly. Tommy did not 
know — ^he never knew — ^how wonderfully his face 
softened and changed when he smiled. People had 
loved him, before this time, for that sweet boyish 
smile of his, and in those days his face had been 
rather boyish at all times, so that the tender smile 
altered it far less than now. 

“It isn’t as if I’d anything very pressing to take me 
back across the bottom, is it?” he went on, and the 
girl saw that, as he turned his head to look toward 
Half-Breed Hill, the smile’ died as quickly as it had 
come, leaving his face stern and hollow-eyed. “I 
don’t lead a busy life on my hill-top, yonder,” he said. 

“No,” said the girl slowly, watching his averted 
face. “No, I reckon not. I reckon you ain’t — ^you 
aren’t very happy, neither,” she said. 

Tommy’s eyes came back, frowning a little, but 
there was no hint of impertinence in the girl’s face, no 
trace of curiosity or a desire to pry into his affairs — 
only a sort of timid sympathy, a sort of apologetic 
kindliness. 

“Why do you say that?” asked young Tommy after 
a moment. 

“Why?” she said. “Oh, I don’t — it’s your face, 
I reckon. You don’t look like you were happy. You 
look like you sat up thinking about things when you 


106 


TOMMY CARTERET 


ought to be in baid, a-sleeping. I reckon it’s your eyes, 
maybe. They don’t look like you ever laughed.” 

Young Tommy belied his eyes by laughing, but it 
was a short laugh and a poor one. There was no 
mirth in it. 

“You see I’m rather alone in the world,” he ex- 
plained. “I expect I do sit up thinking about things 
when I should be sleeping. Loneliness isn’t gay, 
very, is it?” 

“No,” said she, “it isn’t.” 

“I wish ” she said, and paused, hesitating. 

“What?” said young Tommy. 

“ Nothing,” said the girl, and turned her eyes, flush- 
ing a little, and fell silent. 

Young Tommy sat leaning back against one of the 
slight pillars of the porch, and watched the girl’s face, 
waiting for her to speak. His mood again shifted to 
a restless desire to get away, to a distaste for talk. 
Surely he and this hill girl had nothing to talk about. 
They had not an interest in common. As for her, 
she doubtless had nothing to say. She was handsome, 
though, here in this clear morning light. That was 
beyond denial. She was far handsomer than he had 
supposed, in her black-haired, big-eyed, gipsy fashion. 
It was not the type of beauty that young Tommy most 
fancied. It was a bit too strongly accented, too black 
and brown, too red-lipped, too broad in cheek and 
jaw, but undoubtedly it was, in rather singular per- 
fection, the type which universally makes a strong 
appeal to man-nature. If you were hypercritically 
minded you might call it blowsy — and therein do it a 
bit of a wrong — but that it made a fine picture you 
could not gainsay. These gipsyish women have set 
the world afire more than once. 


THE WHIRLWIND BIDES ITS TIME 107 


Young Tommy, waiting for the girl to speak, watched, 
noting and approving feature by feature, and, as he 
watched, the man who stood beside, coldly critical, 
held, as it were, a finger on his pulse, searched him for 
a hint of interest or gratification, but the pulse jumped 
no more quickly, and of interest or gratification there 
was none. That same gray pall which hung between 
Tommy and the yellow sunlight hung also between 
him and Canfield’s daughter. It was nothing to him 
that the girl was handsome and that he had saved her life. 

He stirred slightly where he sat, and the girl’s eyes 
turned to him, but dropped again when she met his 
gaze, and the ready flush came once more up over 
her cheeks. 

‘‘If I knew how,” she said, “if there was any way 
of doing it, I’d try to thank you for — last night. I’ve 
been wondering, just now, an’ it seems silly, sort of, to 
try to thank anybody for saving your life. What does 
thanks amount to?” 

“Oh, I say!” cried young Tommy Carteret, “let’s 
drop all that. I don’t want to be thanked, you know. 
Let’s just forget it.” 

The girl shook her head. 

“No, we won’t forget it,” she said. “Leastwise, 
I won’t; but I won’t talk about it, neither, if you don’t 
want to. What did you do when I stumbled and 
swooned away that last time, on the hill-side? The 
next I knew I was on the floor in the house, hyuh.” 

“ Oh, I carried you the rest of the way! ” said young 
Tommy. “It wasn’t far.” 

“Carried me!” she cried under her breath, and her 
eyes widened. “ You carried me in your arms ? Why, 
I weigh nigh a hundred an’ forty pound! You must 
be right strong.” 


108 


TOMMY CARTERET 


*'R wasn’t far,” said young Tommy again, but the 
girl continued to stare at him thoughtfully. 

‘‘Oh!” she said after a moment, “here comes Rose. 
— Mr. Carter, make you acquainted with my sister, 
Mrs. Barrows.” 

The woman who had retreated into the house at 
young Tommy’s approach came out to ask the in- 
valid if she needed anything. She was a rather hand- 
some woman, oddly like her younger sister, but too 
heavy by twenty pounds, and this extra weight, together 
with a certain coarsening of the features, gave her the 
appearance of being much older than the girl on the 
pallet, though in fact the difference was a matter of 
but three or four years. Her speech, young Tommy 
noted, was the vernacular unchastened and uncurbed. 
If she had ever had any of the training which the 
younger woman exhibited, when she had herself in 
hand, it had long since fallen from her like an out-used 
garment. 

“We caint thank you-all enough fo’ bringin’ Mariana 
home las’ evenin’, Mr. Cyartuh,” she said; but the 
girl broke in, smiling: 

“He don’t like to be thanked,” said she. “He’s 
just stopped me from trying to thank him. I said I 
wouldn’t talk about it any more.” 

“No, please don’t!” said young Tommy. “Any- 
how, I must be going. I’m quite sure that it’s not 
good for you to hold receptions. You need rest and 
quiet.” He took the hand which the girl stretched 
out to him, and he was vaguely pleased at its warm, 
firm grip as it closed over his — like a man’s hand; but 
also he was vaguely troubled at the look in her eyes, 
the same wistful, appealing look that he had seen a 
few moments before. He was not enough interested 


THE WHIRLWIND BIDES ITS TIME 109 


to wonder what it meant, but it made him, for just a 
moment, a bit uncomfortable. 

“Oh, your flask!’’ she said. “I forgot about it. 
You left it hyuh last night. Do you know where it is. 
Rose?” 

The other woman looked a bit surprised. 

“I thought ’at you had it out hyuh,” said she. “It 
was on the cheer hyuh this mawnin’.” 

“No, it must be in the house,” said the girl. “Will 
you look?” 

Mrs. Barrows, in spite of young Tommy’s polite 
assurances that it didn’t in the least matter, went inside 
to look, but returned presently to say that the flask 
could not be found. 

“Of co’se it’s somewheres,” said the girl. “It has 
ben put aside, I reckon.” She looked up into young 
Tommy’s face. 

“Couldn’t you come over — ^to-morrow, again?” 
she said; “just for a minute, if you’d nothing at all to 
do? They’ll have found it before then. I’m — sorry 
about it. Could you come? I’d be right glad.” 

“I shall be glad to,” said young Tommy, though 
that was a lie. “Not for the flask, of course, for that 
doesn’t matter, but I shall want to see that you’re get- 
ting on well.” Then he bowed to the two women and 
went toward the gate. As he passed the corner of the 
house, he thought he saw a lurking, suspicious figure, 
iron-gray and sullen, beside the well, but the figure 
removed itself, and young Tommy went on down the 
hill-side. 

But the two women on the covered porch looked 
after him until he had disappeared. 

“He’s shorely polite,” said the elder, after a mo- 
ment, “jes’ like a gen’leman in a book. He kept his 


110 


TOMMY CARTERET 


hat off all the time whilst he was hyuh. I wonder — 
I wonder what made him come to Egypt to live. It 
ain’t as if he aimed to farm. He’s gave the wheat, an’ 
oats, an’ co’n, ’at Will Satterlee put in, to Jared.” 

“I reckon he had some good reason for leaving his 
home,” said the girl, staring toward Half-Breed Hill. 
“I reckon he did something an’ had to come away.” 

“I wonder what?” persisted the other woman, but 
the girl shook her head. 

“I don’t care,” she said. “What difference does 
it make. He’s hyuh. That’s all that counts.” 

Her sister looked down at her with sudden keenness. 

“Where’s that little bottle with the silver fixin’s ’at 
you was talkin’ about?” she demanded. The girl 
slipped her uninjured hand under the covers and pulled 
out Tommy Carteret’s flask. 

“I didn’t want to — give it to him,” she said, and she 
looked up at the elder woman with a sort of deflance. 
“I wanted him to come again. He wouldn’t have 
come. I knew by the way he acted. Now he will.” 
The other woman regarded her flushed cheeks with a 
thoughtful gravity. 

“He wouldn’ look at you” she said at last, shaking 
her head. “He’ll go back to the city when he’s tired 
of it hyuh. It ain’t any use.” But the girl stirred 
restlessly upon her cot, and her fingers tightened over 
the silver flask. 

“I want him to come again,” she said. “I want 
him to come again.” 


CHAPTER IX 


Tommy Finds a Fellow in Egypt Land 

I AM firmly convinced that there is, in all the world, 
nothing so antipathetic to inward gloom as an hour 
astride a good horse — no sorry nag, mind you, no 
patient, plodding, weary jade, but a horse fresh, 
spirited, keen in all senses, eager to leap at touch of 
spur or crop, ready to shy coquettishly at wind-blown 
paper or mysterious rustlings from the roadside. I 
defy you, sir, to maintain your clouded eye, your drawn 
brow, with this strong, live machine leaping between 
your knees, throbbing in regular cadence beneath your 
swaying body. I dare you to say this world is a mean 
world! 

Young Tommy Carteret, early on this afternoon, 
mounted, in his still, dark humour, and turned toward 
the long wood-road which swept in a wide curve east- 
ward, leading he knew not where. It was cool and 
odorous under that high shaded arch, for the sun came 
only in tiny, dappling flecks. The mare was fresh and 
keen — Jared on his mission that morning to the vil- 
lage had driven his brother’s half-broken colt — and 
half an hour had young Tommy whistling ribald airs 
from the late musical comedies — airs v/hich rang oddly 
down these ancient aisles. Another half-hour had 
him teasing the mare, and laughing when that lady 
pretended to be angry, switching at the branches with 
his crop, as he passed under, sniffing the good wood 
111 


112 


TOMMY CARTERET 


smells and thinking how good they were. Aye, it's 
a cure for inward gloom, an hour astride a horse! 

He was quite out of reckoning before he had gone 
five miles. The road was entirely strange to him, but 
Tommy intelligently reasoned that all roads lead some- 
where, and that there appeared no good reason why 
this one should be classed by itself. Moreover, it was 
always easy to ask one's whereabouts at the nearest 
farm-house. But, just as it was beginning to occur to 
him that the way back would be as long as the way out, 
and that he must be at a very considerable distance 
from home, the wood-road met another road which 
seemed oddly familiar, and Tommy found himself on 
the direct route from Half-Breed Hill to the village. 
His woodland lane had brought him in a great, sweep- 
ing half-circle, and he was not more than four miles 
from his cabin. 

There was a house, just here, which had always in- 
terested him as he passed it, because it was so differ- 
ent from the slovenly dwellings of the other settlers. 
It was set well back from the road among trees, a white 
house with green shutters, in no way pretentious, but 
it had about it and about the grounds which sur- 
rounded it an air of neatness, an appearance of careful 
grooming, which made it conspicuous. Young Tommy 
had once asked the admirable Jared who lived here, 
but Jared — as in the case of most of Tommy's queries 
— did not know. It was called, he said, the hermit's 
house. No, he did not know 'who the hermit was — a 
foreigner, he thought. The hermit's servant, a close- 
mouthed, silent man, went back and forth for provi- 
sions, but the hermit himself was never seen. 

Tommy rode slowly past the place. A tall, close- 
growing hedge of lilac ran along the roadside, and par- 


TOMMY FINDS A FELLOW 113 


tially screened the grounds within, but through gaps 
in this he caught glimpses of well-trimmed box borders 
and gravel paths and raised flower beds. He heard 
the barking of a dog, as if at play, from somewhere 
inside the tall hedge, and the voice of a man calling 
to the dog. Then, all at once, a splendid collie pup 
broke through the shrubs and ran round and round 
the mare, barking and leaping as irresponsible pups 
— ^before they are taught good manners — are wont to 
do. Tommy reined in the mare to a standstill and 
whistled cheerily to the dog, holding out his crop for 
it to leap to, but, as the pup accepted the challenge, 
the lilac bushes near by parted, and a man came out 
to the roadside, calling and blowing a whistle which 
was set into the butt of his dog-whip. 

He looked up at Tommy Carteret with a stiff bow. 

‘T trust my dog has not annoyed you,” he said; “it 
has, as yet, no manners.” But Tommy’s eyes were 
staring and amazed, and he did not at once reply. The 
man was a bit past middle age — fifty, possibly, a gray 
man, long and lean and thin-faced, with a curiously 
high, long forehead and a high beaked nose over droop- 
ing moustaches of a fashion in vogue a generation ago; 
but Tommy Carteret’s eyes were not fixed upon the 
man’s face; they stared at the jacket which the man 
wore. It was a thin jacket of blue flannel, braided at 
the edge and at the pockets, and on the breast-pocket 
was worked a certain device in coloured silks. 

“I trust my dog has not annoyed you,” said the man 
again, patiently. “He has no manners.” 

“Oh, not at all! Not at all!” said young Tommy 
Carteret. “I stopped to look at him. He is an un- 
commonly fine collie.” Tommy gave an embarrassed 
little laugh. 


114 


TOMMY CARTERET 


‘T^m afraid I was staring,” he added. “I beg your 
pardon. I was taken a bit by surprise. You see, 
Oxford blazers are not common hereabouts. That is, 
if they are, I haven’t seen them.” 

The Englishman fixed a glass in his eye and looked 
up at the younger man, frowning a bit in the white 
glare of the sun. 

*‘Ah!” he said, ‘‘you will be the gentleman who has 
come to live in the hill country, yonder. My man 
has spoken of you. You must have ridden some dis- 
tance. Your horse is warm. I should be glad if you 
would come in and spend an hour with me.” 

‘‘I shall be glad to,” said Tommy, simply. “It is 
some weeks since I have spoken to — to a man of — to 
any one but the natives here.” 

“It is fifteen years,” said the Englishman, “since I 
have spoken to a gentleman. The driveway is below 
us, yonder. I will walk beside you to show you the 
way.” 

They went some distance down the lilac hedge, by 
the roadside, and presently turned into a winding 
drive, box-bordered and sheltered by overhanging 
trees. Near the house, the Englishman blew a signal 
upon his dog-whistle, and a man came to take Tommy 
Carteret’s horse — a clean-shaven, alert, silent little 
man, English like his master. They went through a 
deep porch, vine-screened, into the house, and a 
wave of inward sickness swept over young Tommy, 
and something stabbed sharply at his heart, for it was 
the sort of house which he thought to have left behind 
him forever out in that world to which he was dead. 
No cabin this, dressed with hangings and bric-k-brac 
and pictures to hide its bare poverty of design, but a 
true house, with big square rooms, cool and habitable, 


TOMMY FINDS A FELLOW 


115 


with vistas through open doorways of further rooms 
beyond. It breathed leisure and quiet and undis- 
turbed comfort. There was a faint, pleasant scent of 
leather bindings — for the walls of the room to which 
they had come were lined with books. The glare of 
the afternoon sun was excluded by lowered shades 
and drawn curtains through which only a dim yellow 
glow penetrated, cool and grateful to tired eyes, and 
in this golden light the great library-table and the 
heavy chairs that stood about the room loomed with 
a certain massive solidity. 

Tommy Carteret drew a quick breath between his 
closed teeth. 

“Is this all perfectly — real?’’ he said, and there was 
something in his tone which robbed the words of their 
flippancy and made the elder man turn to look at him. 

“Entirely so!” he said, quite gravely. “I have 
tried to make myself comfortable here. When one 
enters upon a lifelong exile, one’s first thought is to 
leave behind everything which could possibly remind 
one of what is — ^is past. After a few years, one finds 
that comfort can do little harm and much good. Man 
is a creature of habit. He is restless, I find, if deprived 
of his books and his easy chair.” The Englishman 
had been busying himself, while he spoke, at a little 
cabinet across the room. He brought glasses, and a 
small jar of broken ice, and two decanters. 

“I have Scotch,” he said, “and a dark-coloured 
American whiskey, made, I am told, from maize. If 
you have been long in America, you may prefer that. 
Personally, I do not care for it.” 

“Scotch, thank you,” said young Tommy. “I am 
unpatriotic enough to dislike American whiskey.” 

The elder man raised his eyebrows in polite surprise. 


116 


TOMMY CARTERET 


Unpatriotic?’’’ he repeated. “You mean that 
you are an American ? I should not have suspected it. 
You speak English without accent.” 

“I had English nurses and tutors,” said young 
Carteret, “and I have lived a great deal abroad.” 

The elder man filled the glasses and sat down 
beside the big library table, across from his guest. 
He bowed slightly as he raised his glass and drank 
from it. 

“To our better acquaintance!” he said. “I count 
myself fortunate in having been by the roadside this 
afternoon.” Then, for a little space, they fell silent, 
watching each other’s faces across the table as two 
men, strangers, will, at their first meeting — measuring 
each other, wondering, I fancy, each one, what strange 
fate could have brought such a man as the other to 
exile in this wilderness. 

The Englishman’s gloomy eyes narrowed with a 
gleam of amusement, and he laughed gently, fingering 
his tall glass. 

“I will wager,” he said, “that each of us is putting 
to himself exactly the same questions — making the 
same surmises. It is a quaint situation — No!” hold- 
ing up his hand, as young Tommy would have spoken, 
“No, I do not mean that I should suggest confidences. 
Those must come much later, if at all. I do not wish 
to ask questions about you, and I am sure you do not, 
as yet, care to question me. I spoke because the fact 
seemed to me amusing.” 

“I was not,” said young Tommy, “about to inflict 
the story of my life upon you. I was about to sug- 
gest that, if you see no harm in it, we might exchange 
names — just something to go on with,” he explained, 
carefully, “something to call each other by, you know, 


TOMMY FINDS A FELLOW 


117 


even if it^s only Jones and Robinson.” The elder 
man laughed again, quietly. 

“I must confess,” said he, “to having an advantage 
of you there. I already know your name. My 
man Peters heard you spoken of in the village, 
and felt called upon to tell me of your coming to 
the neighbourhood. I would not have you think 
Peters a gossip. This was a somewhat exceptional 
case.” 

‘‘The name I use here,” said young Tommy, “is 
not my own. For certain reasons, I do not wish my 
own name to be generally known. I am Thomas 
Carteret, 2nd, of New York.” 

The Englishman nodded. “Thank you!” said he. 
“Carteret! It is a good name. I need not say that 
it is safe with me. May I return your courtesy ? My 
name is Henry Carnardon.” 

Young Tommy said “Thank you,” but something 
stirred in the depths of his memory, something con- 
nected with that name Henry Carnardon — Harry 
Carnardon. Then, all at once, he set down his glass 
with an exclamation of concern. 

“What is it?” asked Henry Carnardon. 

“I wish to be perfectly fair,” said the younger man. 
“I do not wish to keep anything from you. It is 
better, I think. I happen to know quite a bit about 
you — why you are here and all that. I know your 
cousin the Earl of Strope, and his son Lord Stratton, 
who married the first Isabeau de Monsigny. Lord 
Stratton’s daughter, the present Isabeau de Monsigny, 
and her husband, Ashton Beresford, are old friends of 
mine. I am sorry. Lord Henry. You will see, of 
course, that I had to tell you.” 

The Englishman’s hand shook suddenly against his 


118 


TOMMY CARTERET 


tall whiskey glass, and a swift flush came across his 
livid face and went as swiftly as it had come. 

‘‘Yes!'’ he said under his breath, nodding slowly. 
“Yes, yes!” and stared for a long time across the 
darkened room, quite silent, while young Tommy 
Carteret watched his face with anxious eyes and 
cursed the faithful memory which had put him in the 
guise of a spying intruder upon this man's terrible 
history. But, in spite of his discomfort, he could not 
but be aware of a very lively interest as he looked at 
the lean, worn face and cavernous eyes across the 
table — that interest which must, of necessity, attach 
itself to the personality of a man whose life has been 
extraordinarily romantic or tragic. 

“Twenty years!'' said Lord Henry Carnardon, still 
under his breath and nodding thoughtfully as he spoke. 
“Twenty years! And they're marrying and begetting 
and dying out there in the world just as they used to. 
Isabeau is dead — God rest her white soul! — and little 
Isabeau, whom I have never seen, is grown up and 
married!'' A bit of colour had come into his bony 
cheeks, and there was a certain gleam of excitement in 
the eyes he turned upon Tommy Carteret. 

“ And so you know Stratton ! '' he said. “ And the old 
Earl — he must be a very old Earl now. His mother 
and mine were sisters, but my mother was much the 
younger, which accounts for the thirty years of differ- 
ence between Strope's age and mine. He had extraor- 
dinary physical strength, had he not? I remember 
the amazing things he could do with his hands. He 
was vain of his strength, the Earl was. So you know 
them all, and you and I meet here, in this wilderness, 
to talk it over! It is curious. I am far beyond feeling 
surprised at anything, but, if I were not, I expect I should 


TOMMY FINDS A FELLOW 


119 


be rather overcome. Tell me a little about Richard 
and the Earl. Where do they live nowadays, and do 
they look as much like twin brothers as they used ? 

Young Tommy’s surprise overcame his manners. 

“Do you mean,” he asked, “that you hear nothing 
from them at all ? Is it possible that they do not write 
to you?” The Englishman shook his head with a 
little faint smile. 

“When I left the world,” said he, “I closed the 
door behind me, and — there is no key. You are — 
pardon me ! — ^too young to remember the wide publicity 
that Sicilian affair had in the newspapers. My disap- 
pearance was necessary, and anything like a resurrec- 
tion, to phrase it so, would be most unfortunate for a 
number of people. Neither the Earl nor Richard 
knows whether I am alive or dead. One day I shall die, 
very swiftly. Do you know the Sicilians? They are 
banded together by a sort of spirit, an idea, an informal 
brotherhood for resistance and revenge which foreigners 
wrongly believe to be an organisation. It is called the 
Mafia. When I die, it will be at the hands of some 
Sicilian or two or three, who will have discovered me 
here. They have been a long time about it, a long, 
weary time, but one day they will come.” 

Carnardon had leaned back in his arm-chair with 
his eyes upturned and a small whimsical smile at his 
lips. He stared into the shadows of the ceiling, as if he 
saw a picture there and as if the picture amused him. 

“One day,” he said, “Peters will come to tell me 
that it is time to dress for dinner, or that the accounts 
are ready for looking over, or that the geraniums are not 
doing well, and he will find me, face down here, on the 
table, with a long, straight knife in my back, and, 
pinned to me by the knife — skewered, as it were — a bit 


120 


TOMMY CARTERET 


of paper with a single word written on it. Then a 
certain account will have been settled which should 
have been settled long since, and an historic incident 
with which, I take it, you are familiar will have been 
closed.” 

Tommy Carteret made a little overwrought exclama- 
tion. R did not seem to him possible that a man 
could look forward to such a fate with such absolute 
lack of any emotion, but as Carnardon lapsed again 
into silence, and he watched the lean face relax into its 
habitual mask, seared, lined, incredibly hollow-eyed, 
he began dimly to understand. He thought of what 
the man’s youth had been, of his family, his connections, 
his diplomatic ambition, and he tried to picture the 
five years of hunted exile in Eastern seas and the subse- 
quent fifteen dreary years here in this hermitage — 
twenty years of enduring, and hoping for death to come. 
It made his own estate seem, all at once, trivial and 
insignificant and unimportant by contrast. It made 
him feel curiously young and untried — like one playing 
at grief — when he looked at this man and realised what 
he had endured. 

“I should not have borne it,” he said abruptly, and 
did not know that he had spoken aloud until the other’s 
eyes met his. “I should have ended it long since. 
There is always suicide to resort to.” 

But Carnardon shook a slow head. 

have the strongest possible prejudice against 
suicide,” said he. “It is my one unalterable moral 
scruple. I do not believe that a man has a right to 
take his own life under any circumstances — except, of 
course, by way of sacrifice, when by giving his life he 
can save a more valuable one. Don’t suppose,” he 
said, smiling across the table at the younger man, 


TOMMY FINDS A FELLOW 


121 


don't suppose that I have not fought and argued 
it out at length, alone here. I have sat at this table 
for hours which would amount in sum, I fancy, to 
months, with a pistol before my hands, stating the 
question and arguing each side of it with all the skill 
I possess, hoping against hope that one day I might 
be able to argue down my scruple and end it all with 
the pistol. One has time for a great deal of argument, 
my friend, in twenty years." 

‘‘ I am six-and-twenty," said young Tommy Carteret, 
stirring his glass and staring down into it. “In twenty 
years I shall be six-and-forty. In twenty more I 
shall be six-and-sixty. I come of a long-lived race, 
and — ^there is no one to slip a knife into my back and 
set me free." The Englishman opened his mouth to 
speak, but closed it again, shaking his head as if words 
seemed to him idle. And he looked at the young 
American with a grave, compassionate understanding 
as one who stood at the beginning of a path which he 
himself had travelled and knew in all its bitterness. 

“A lifetime," he said presently, “is a long matter. 
If I were disposed to offer counsel, and you disposed 
to listen to it, I should say, do not look ahead. Treat 
your life like a book. Read only the page that is before 
you. There may be surprises in the next chapter. 
One can never know. — ^Will you tell me something 
about Strope and Richard Stratton? I look back 
upon the life I lived with them and with others, twenty 
— thirty years ago, in a rather odd fashion. I visualise 
it, as it were. It is as if I stood far up a dark corridor 
through which I might not retrace my steps, and, looking 
backward, saw at the corridor's end a square of sun- 
shine with a garden and many beautiful things, and a 
group of people in the sunshine whom I used to know 


122 


TOMMY CARTERET 


and care for. It is a strange and fantastic picture, but 
one finds himself given to fantasy when he is alone for 
years together. I never leave my grounds here, you 
know. I have not left them or spoken to a human 
being, save Peters, since I first came.” 

So young Tommy spoke at length about the old 
Earl of Strope and about Richard, Viscount Stratton 
his son, and about Isabeau de Monsigny, whom people 
called the most beautiful woman in Europe — she was 
Lord Stratton’s daughter by his French wife, the 
Monsigny heiress. He told about Chateau Monsigny, 
near Versailles, where all the family lived in good, old, 
almost feudal, fashion, and where he himself had often 
stayed. And the Englishman, who had lighted a pipe, 
listened intently, nodding and puffing great clouds of 
smoke. There was an unwonted light in his deep 
eyes, and that little dull flush had come again to the 
bony cheeks, glowing strangely above their haggard 
markings. 

‘‘You are very good!” he said when, after an hour 
or more, young Carteret stopped. “In some faint 
fashion you will imagine how all this interests me. 
You come by way of a messenger from a world I had 
not expected to see again, and I have seen it through 
your eyes. You are very good.” 

“I am fortunate,” said young Tommy, “in being 
able to do you a service. I must be going, I fear. 
It is nearly, six o’clock, and my man will have my 
dinner — to use a good word for a poor thing — ready 
for me at seven.” 

“I was on the point of asking you,” said Henry 
Carnardon, “to do me the honour of dining here wdth 
me. I hesitated because I am so well aware that I 
can offer little in the way of entertainment and nothing 


TOMMY FINDS A FELLOW 


123 


at all in the way of gaiety. I am a bird of dark 
plumage, Mr. Carteret. I croak: I cannot sing, for 
I have forgotten how. It must be a dinner, as it were, 
of funeral baked meats, but, grave or gay, I shall be 
glad if you will join me. We will dine at eight, and, 
if you do not care to return home meanwhile, we will 
make it a very informal meal, and not dress. 

“Why, thank you! ” said young Tommy, “ I will come 
with pleasure — very great pleasure. Perhaps I would 
best return home, meanwhile, though. I must give 
some instructions to my man Jared. At eight, then ?” 

The man Peters brought the mare to the side porch. 
It gave Tommy another little homesick pang to see him 
stand at the mare’s head as a groom should, and 
touch his cap as he released the reins. And the master 
of Half-Breed Hill rode briskly homeward, through 
the late-afternoon sunlight, with a boyish sense of 
excitement over the evening to come. He turned the 
mare over to Jared with instructions to remove the 
saddle and put her into the cart, as he should be wanting 
to drive later on. Then he went indoors, still with that 
sense of gleeful excitement, and burrowed to the bottom 
of a large trunk, where lay folded his long-untouched 
evening clothes. He remembered, as he pulled them 
out, with just what a sorry grin he had included them 
among his other things when packing this trunk in 
Washington Square. As if one would ever want 
evening clothes in that solitary hell to which he was 
booked 1 

“Pretty bad!” said young Tommy, shaking his head 
over the wrinkles and creases in the black cloth. 
“Altogether too bad! Ass! Why didn’t I hang the 
things up instead of leaving them folded there?” He 
wandered disconsolately out into the kitchen, and his 


124 


TOMMY CARTERET 


clouded eye fell upon an iron which stood heating at 
the back of the cooking-stove. The admirable Jared 
had been ironing table-cloths. 

‘‘Every man his own valet! said Tommy Carteret 
firmly, and swept a litter of encumbrances from the 
long deal table. He brought out the coat and trousers 
and dampened them with a brush dipped in water; then, 
laboriously and with awkward, unaccustomed hands, 
he pressed the many creases and wrinkles from the 
cloth till both garments hung smooth and flawless. 

“I never thought I should come to that,” he said, 
mopping his reddened face, “but you never can tell. 
Anyhow, I shall look respectable, now. I couldn’t 
have gone in the rags as they were.” 

An hour later he stood immaculate at the cabin door, 
demanding his cart, and the stricken Jared leaned 
feebly against a near-by post and said “Hell!” in an 
awed whisper, several times. 

Still an hour later, in that house on the village road 
locally known as the hermitage*, two gentlemen sat 
down to dinner where one had sat alone each night for 
fifteen years. 

“This morning,” said Lord Henry Carnardon, ad- 
justing his eyeglass, “I should have said that the 
resurrection of the dead or the failure of the solar 
system were, either of them, more probable of occur- 
rence than the coming of a dinner guest to this house. 
Yes, the unread pages hold odd surprises for us — 
Thank God! I hope that we may sit together often. 
I have been thinking, do you know, of what I said to 
you two hours ago, about the inevitability of a cheerless 
and funereal meal. I am rather of the opinion that I 
was mistaken. It may be that I am a bird of dark 
plumage — that I croak instead of singing, but on this 


TOMMY FINDS A FELLOW 


125 


occasion I feel bursts of song rise to my throat. I feel 
an unwonted sense of gaiety. Alas! gaiety will sit 
awkwardly upon me, no doubt!’’ And, indeed, as the 
dinner progressed, and the wine-glasses were filled 
and refilled many times over by the attentive Peters, 
an odd and wintry gaiety seemed to infold the man, 
where it sat, as he had prophesied, a bit awkwardly as 
if from very long disuse. His speech became freer 
and more colloquial. — ^Young Tommy had previously 
noticed in it an unusual correctness, a tinge almost of 
pedantry, a disinclination to abbreviate, as if the 
man had, for many years, talked little and read 
much. He sat forward, elbows on the table, and 
told jokes and humorous stories a generation old, 
and laughed over them, gustily, like a man who 
has almost forgotten how to laugh. He emptied 
his wine-glass as soon as it was refilled, with quick, 
eager gulps. 

‘T commonly limit myself,” he apologised, “to a 
half-bottle of Bordeaux with my dinner, changing to 
this Burgundy once or twice a week by way of variety; 
but, to-night, we celebrate. I shall drink until I lose 
the sense of discrimination. That is a safe barrier to 
set up. There is a certain stage which one reaches 
after slowly drinking a moderate quantity of good wine, 
and which is the climax of mental and bodily exhilara- 
tion. It is nothing like drunkenness; it is not even the 
introduction to drunkenness. It is the point at which 
a man’s serenity and wit are both at their height. I 
have known men who deliberately induced the state 
when they had a bit of work to do which would demand 
the nicest delicacy and the finest intuition of which 
their brains were capable. I think that, if I could 
reach that stage to-night, I should drop twenty years 


126 


TOMMY CAETERET 


out of my life as one drops a coat from his shoulders. 
It might be interesting. ’’ 

It certainly would have been interesting. It was 
scarcely less so to watch the man, as young Tommy 
Carteret watched him, drinking swiftly and hopefully 
with a look in his brightened eyes of eager expectancy 
and keen excitement. It was as if he held a finger on 
his mental pulse, hoping for the beat which would not 
come. His face flushed ruddily, and his sunken eyes 
took on a certain hard glitter, but after a time he shook 
his head and sighed. 

‘T am afraid it is useless,” he said. “I seem to be 
spirit-proof. This is a rather full-bodied Chambertin, 
but it will not affect me in the least. I am sorry. 
They say that melancholy men are much less easily 
affected by drink than others. That may be true. 
If it is, I suppose nothing could make me drunk — 
nothing.” He nodded to the quiet servant, who once 
more filled the wine-glasses. 

‘‘We will drink one toast,” said Henry Carnardon, 
and rose to his feet. “Two dead men standing up in 
their graves and drinking a toast! Ha, ha! Each of 
us to one woman out yonder in the world.” He raised 
his glass, looking over it into the shadows across 
the room, and, in the candlelight. Tommy Carteret saw 
his eyes widen slightly and stare as if he saw something 
or some one in the shadows. Then he spoke a name, 
under his breath, as if he did not know that he spoke, 
and drained the wine-glass to its dregs. The name 
he had spoken was “Isabeau.” Was it the young 
Isabeau who lived with her husband at Chateau 
Monsigny ? Carnardon had never seen her. The 
dead Isabeau, then, her mother? She had been Lord 
Stratton’s wife. Mystery here! Odd things come to 


TOMMY FINDS A FELLOW 


127 


the surface sometimes, just with the speaking of a 
name — come to the surface and disappear again like 
the face of a drowned man in a tide-way. 

But Tommy Carteret raised his glass high, and his 
mind flashed back to a certain night in Washington 
Square. 

“ God save the Queen!” he said in a whisper, but the 
strength went from his lifted arm, and the red wine 
spilled as his hand dropped. 

"‘I cannot drink that toast,” he said. “There is 
no woman to whose name I can drink.” The other 
man, who had slipped again into his seat, raised dull, 
vacant eyes to him. 

“Did you speak?” said he. “I beg your pardon; 
I did not hear. I was dreaming.” 

“It was nothing,” said Tommy Carteret, and sat 
down a bit heavily. “Nothing. I spoke aloud to 
myself. One who is much alone forms a habit of 
thinking aloud.” 

“That is true! ” nodded the other man. “I go about 
my quiet, daily activities here talking, talking, arguing 
questions aloud, as busily as if I had a listener — far 
more busily, indeed. Sometimes the absurdity of it 
occurs to me, and I stop to laugh at myself.” 

“We take things rather alike, I should think,” said 
Tommy Carteret. 

“Yes,” said the elder man thoughtfully. “Yes. 
Too much so. — Altogether too much so,” he repeated. 
He leaned forward across the table, frowning and 
watching the other’s face. 

“I look at you to-night,” he said, “and in you 
I see myself of twenty years ago. What you have just 
said is even truer than you realise. We have tempera- 
ments surprisingly alike, and Fate, or our familiar 


128 


TOMMY CARTERET 


devils, or whatever you choose to call the guiding force, 
has chosen to put us into the same living death. What 
I have endured for these twenty years, you are about to 
experience. You will not go mad; you will not attempt 
to kill yourself or do any other rash, desperate thing. 
You will sit tight and drink the cup I have drunk 
before you, just as I have drunk it, deliberately tasting 
to the end each bitter drop and finding the last drop 
as bitter as the first. Now, I speak of this for a reason, 
and I know you will not think me impertinent or prying 
or curious if I go into your affairs a bit. Our lives 
seem, for the moment, to run side by side. I take it 
for granted that you have come into this exile for the 
strongest possible reason — that it is for no whim or 
passing mood, and that you look forward to death as 
the only escape He spoke as if in question and 
waited a moment. 

“Yes,” said Tommy Carteret. “Oh, yes! you may 
take that for granted. There is no escaping.” 

“Then,” said the other man earnestly, “do as I 
have not done. Make some interest for yourself. 
Do something! Do not sit, as I have sat, staring into 
space and counting the hours of the day. Make some 
interest for yourself. Farm your land. Buy machinery 
and experiment. Men become interested in such 
things. In any event, it will fill your days. Make 
friends with the people about you. Marry one of these 
girls I see driving or riding past, to and from the village. 
Better a thousand times drop to their level and live a 
man’s life than sit outside it in your solitary hell.” 

Young Tommy gazed at the man across the table 
with an amazed stare, and he broke into a short, 
incredulous laugh. 

Marry ! ” he said, staring. “ I marry ? — one of these 


TOMMY FINDS A FELLOW 


129 


farmer women ? You do not know what you are saying. 
You must be mad. Oh, it is quite impossible!” 

“I am not mad,” said Henry Carnardon patiently, 
‘though I have, at times, been near it. I know very 
well what I am saying, and I know that it is wise. 
Who should know better than I? I rather expected 
you to take it in this fashion, but you will think of it 
again, later on, when things have become unendurable, 
and, when you do think of it, remember that I urged it 
strongly, and remember what I have gone through.” 

Tommy Carteret shook his head. “I might, one 
day, come to try farming,” said he. “I can imagine 
being driven to that, in time, but never to marriage. 

There are rea Oh, no! that is quite out of the. 

question.” 

“ I did not say that it would transmute your hell into 
a heaven,” warned the elder man. did not claim 
that it would prove a state of bliss, but that it would take 
your mind from yourself.” 

“Still, if one feels as you do,” argued young Carteret, 
“it is never too late to try the experiment. You will 
not be much over fifty, I should think. Why not marry, 
yourself ? You may live thirty or forty years, still.” 

But the other man shook his head with an embar- 
rassed little laugh. 

“ I have a presentiment, absurd, if you like, but quite 
fixed,” he said, “that I shall not live this year out. Two 
or three things have helped, I expect, to strengthen the 
idea. When I was born, the local wise-woman, a Meg 
Merrilles sort of old party, predicted that I should live a 
half-century and then die violently. Then, much later, 
a certain German in London, who had made a study of 
the lines in one’s hand, examined my palm one day. — 
He was quite the fad, I remember. Every one went to 


130 


TOMMY CARTERET 


him. — Are there such people nowadays ? — He also told 
me that I should die violently when I had completed my 
half-century. Odd! What?’’ 

‘‘And your age ? ” demanded young Carteret. “ Your 
age, now?” 

“ I shall be one-and-fifty on the first of next Septem- 
ber,” said the Englishman, smiling. 

Young Tommy sat back in his chair with a quick 
breath. 

“There are thousands of those palmist chaps nowa- 
days,” he said presently. ‘‘They are regarded as the 
most pitiful of quacks, like the seventh daughter of the 
seventh daughter, who tells you your fortune with a 
pack of cards, all for the sum of one dollar.” 

“Oh, I dare say my notion is quite absurd!” said the 
Englishman. “But the belief is strong in me. One 
cannot laugh away a superstitious conviction. It per- 
sists even while admitting that it is foolish. Shall I have 
Peters bring you more coffee ? ” 

“ No, thank you,” said young Carteret. “ I must be 
off for home. It is late.” 

“Yet we, neither of us, look forward to a busy day 
to-morrow, I should think,” smiled the other man. 

“No,” said Tommy. “Still, habit is strong. One is 
in the habit of spending the latter part of the night in 
sleep. You will never ask me to dine with you again if 
I keep you up all night. — Yes, thank you, I will take a 
cigar to smoke as I drive homeward.” 

Out in the road, as the mare trotted briskly away 
through the moonlight where shadows sprawled, 
sharp and black, he gave a last look over his shoulder — 
a wistful look, at the huddle of trees where yellow- 
lighted windows gleamed from the blackness. It 
seemed to him that every clicking step the mare took 


TOMMY FINDS A FELLOW 


131 


bore him farther away from something human and 
cheering and homelike — farther into gloom and loneli- 
ness, an outer void. His mind flashed before his eyes a 
picture of the cabin on Half-Breed Hill, its box-like 
proportions, its poor attempts at comfort, and he gave 
a quick shiver of distaste. 

Twenty years I” said a voice within him. “Forty 
— fifty But there was good blood in young Tommy, 
good, red, fighting blood. He pulled himself up with a 
jerk, stiffening his shoulders; and, tunneling the dense 
gloom of a wood-road behind the mare’s steady feet, he 
lifted a courageous voice in song. He sang, I do not 
know why: 

“Here’s to good Old Yale! 

Drink her down, 

Drink her down!” 

and he sang it all the long way homeward until he pulled 
the mare up at the cabin door. 


CHAPTER X 


A Wench with Calling Eyes 

Mariana, of the Dutch Creek road, sat upon her door- 
step fronting the golden west. The last blaze of the 
sun, before it slipped behind those far hills, crimsoned 
her face and filled her level eyes with strange lights — 
green lights, golden-tawny lights, red lights. She bore 
one arm still in a bandage and sling, but the pallor of 
illness was gone from her, and the flush of life and health 
come back. She sang to herself, under her breath, not, 
it would seem, for joy, but a sad little song with an odd 
crooning melody, which she had heard somewhere and 
remembered. She did not know all the words, only 
bits here and there, but the song seemed to chime with 
her mood, for she sang it over and over again, softly — 
under her breath. 

The man who had come across the Bottom halted to 
look, for Mariana made a picture better than she knew. 
There was something in the pose — knees drawn up, 
arms thrown out straight together over them, shoulders 
and head drooping a bit forward, with two great braids 
of black hair falling to each side; and those wide, level, 
tragic eyes that stared; and the golden blaze of sun- 
light full in Mariana’s dark face. 

“Aah!” said the man who had come across the Bot- 
tom, softly to himself. He had not forgotten that pic- 
tures are beautiful. And he came a step nearer, softly 
still, so that she should not hear him until he spoke : 

132 


A WENCH WITH CALLING EYES 133 


“‘He cometh not/ she said. 

She said: T am aweary, aweary — 

I would that I were dead.’^’ 

Mariana turned with a shivering sob. 

‘‘Oh!” said she, meeting his eyes, and she did not 
smile or offer any greeting or tell him that she was glad 
to see him. And by that he should have known. 

“Who — told you that?” she said. 

“A woman in a poem,” said Tommy Carteret, and 
came forward to sit dov/n on the turf at Mariana^s feet; 
“a woman of your name. You looked so very, very 
doleful and tragic, just now, that it put it into my head.” 

“Ohl” said the new Mariana again. “I thought 
you meant — I didn’t understand. Tell me about the 
woman with my name. My mother got my name out 
of a book of poems, but the book was lost. I reckon it 
might be the same woman. Tell me about her.” 

Tommy Carteret shook his head. 

“I can’t tell things,” said he. “I haven’t a tongue. 
It appears that the other Mariana spent a great deal of 
time waiting for some chap to turn up, and the chap 
didn’t come. It appears that she lived in a rather rum 
old house, quite alone, and heard the rain beat outside, 
and the shutters bang, and mice and things squeak in 
the walls, while she sat up nights waiting for this chap, 
of whom I spoke, to come to her.” 

“I reckon she — cared a heap about him,” ventured 
the new Mariana, sombre-eyed. 

“She must have, I fancy,” said young Tommy, “to 
sit up weeping and wailing for him. It’s all very damp 
and mournful, isn’t it ? What?” 

“ I reckon,” said Mariana, with her eyes to the blazing 
west, “I reckon I know how she felt. Did he come ?” 
she demanded. 


134 


TOMMY CARTERET 


‘T fancy he didn’t/’ said young Tommy. '*But I 
don’t remember. Maybe,” he suggested charitably, 
“the chap didn’t know she wanted him to come, or 
maybe he was dead or something.” The working of a 
fresh and crude mind was beginning to amuse him. He 
knew so little about this type of mind ! It was like tell- 
ing fairy stories to very young children, he thought, and 
listening to their serious and ingenuous commentary. 
You see, he knew so very little about minds. 

“No,” decided the new Mariana gravely, “I don’t 
reckon he was daid. I reckon he — ^just didn’t care 
enough to come. Likely she wasn’t good enough for 
him. Likely she lived in the — country — it sounds like 
that kind of a house — and he was somebody, oh, a great 
lot finer than she was! — and he didn’t care.” 

Tommy laughed. 

Oh, Tommy! Tommy! 

“It was only a poem, you know, after all!” he said, 
but Mariana regarded him sad-eyed. 

“I reckon it might have been true,” said she. “I 
reckon it happens like unto that — sometimes.” And 
she repeated, softly to herself, the lines Tommy had 
quoted : 

“‘He cometh not,’ she said. 

She said : ‘ I am aweary, aweary — 

I would that I were dead.’” 

Tommy stirred uneasily upon the turf, and his brows 
drew into a little frown. 

“Don’t!” he said. “You — ^you say it as if you 
meant it — as if you understood it. What do you know 
about waiting for some one who does not come ? You 
can’t know.” 

“Can’t I?” said the girl, turning her eyes upon him. 
Tommy looked away, for they were such eyes as the 


A WENCH WITH CALLING EYES 135 


other Mariana might well have had — after very long 
waiting. The thing was becoming just a bit strained 
and theatrical, and much more serious than he had 
intended, so that he felt a quick sense of distaste. 

They were extraordinary eyes, though! He could 
not deny that, and he sat quite silent, for a moment or 
two, watching the girl^s face and grumbling to himself, 
for that this child — he knew she was under twenty — 
should be able to look like a queen in tragedy, like a 
woman who has lived and lost and suffered all that life 
holds. He did not know that eyes betray capacity, not 
experience. How should he have known it? 

“ Can’t I ? ” said Mariana again, sombre - eyed. 
‘‘Why?” 

Tommy Carteret made a gesture of irritation. 

“You’re young,” he said; “you have not suffered 
enough. You’re too happy to know.” 

“Happy!” said the girl, with a little scornful laugh. 
“Happy!” She swept a gesture round her which 
seemed to include the mist-wreathed bottom beneath 
her feet, and the far hills, and the slovenly house before 
which she sat. “Happy, here?” she said. “You 
know what this place is like. You know what the peo- 
ple are — only you don’t really know. You saw my 
father that night when you brought me home.” 

“Ah, yes! ” said Tommy Carteret stiffly. “ Of course, 
I can’t enter into a criticism of your father with you.” 

“Why not?” she demanded in frank surprise. Here 
was a standard she did not comprehend. “Why not? 
He criticised you hard enough. What difference does 
it make if he’s my father or not ? It’s all the worse if I 
have to live with him. Do you reckon a girl is going to 
be happy here ? Maybe I was happy enough, because 
I didn’t know anything better, till they sent me down to 


136 


TOMMY CARTERET 


school in Effingham. I didn’t stay a year, quite, but I 
got a chance to see what people are like, out away from 
here, and how they do things. Then, just when I’d 
begun to learn, I had to — come back.” 

She turned upon Tommy Carteret fiercely, spreading 
out her arms. 

‘‘ What’s going to become of me ? ” she cried. ‘‘ What 
am I going to do ? They won’t let me go away again. 
They say it gave me — airs ; airs! They say it made me 
despise my home and my family and — all that. Well, 
it did! I do despise them. They’re trash, and I know 
it. What’s going to become of me? Am I going to 
marry one of these — these hill farmers and settle down 
to be a slave ? You’ve seen these men and their wives. 
Have I got to be like that ? I’d — rather kill myself. I’d 
rather run away and go to some city. I’d rather be any- 
thing, any kind of a woman. And you say I’m happy! ” 
The girl’s eyes were very bright and her cheeks very 
flushed, and the bosom of her cheap calico frock lifted 
and fell swiftly, but she did not begin to weep and bewail 
her woes as another type of woman would have done. 
She blazed rebellion from every inch of her tense body, 
and rebellion in her was rather splendid to see. 

‘‘Oh, I say!” broke out Tommy Carteret awkwardly. 
“I say, you know, I’m — ^sorry. I wish it didn’t have 
to be. I wish there were something — well, there isn’t 
anything one can say, is there ? I’m sorry, that’s all. 
I’d never thought of you as being lonely. I didn’t sup- 
pose you felt like that about it. I’ve been so much 
wrapped up in my own silly troubles — a chap isy you 
know — that I expect I didn’t see. No,” he said. “I 
shouldn’t like to think of your marrying one of these 
hill people and settling down to slavery. Somehow, it’s 
not what you — not what you were made for.” 


A WENCH WITH CALLING EYES 137 


‘‘No/’ said the girl, ‘‘it ain^t.” 

“Let’s think it over a bit!” said young Tommy after 
a pause. “You want to get away. You want to go 
where the people are civilised people — where there’s 
something to do and see and think of beyond the crops 
and the weather and the shortcomings of your neigh- 
bours. It’s not gay here, one must admit, and a young 
girl has a sort of inherent right to gaiety. She has a 
right to the fun that other girls in happier places are 
having every day of their lives. You never can have 
that sort of fun the second time. If you’re cheated of it 
when you’re a girl it’s lost to you forever.” 

“I know! I know!” said the girl, leaning toward 
him through the pale dusk. “ I saw them in Effingham 
— the girls that were just having a good time — nothing 
to trouble them, nothing to think of but just having a 
good time. I wish I’d never gone; it’s spoiled every- 
thing.” 

“I wonder,” said Tommy Carteret, staring at her 
thoughtfully. “There must be a way. It’s horribly 
unfair to chain you to these hills. You don’t belong to 
them. There must be some way.” He fell again into 
silence, staring at the girl who sat across from him, and 
the girl was silent too, waiting, with her great, sombre 
eyes fixed upon Tommy’s face, and her lips parted. 

“I fancy,” said young Tommy, “that there must be 
plenty of people — I fancy I know people, who have 
plenty of — money, heaps more money than they need, and 
who would be glad to spend some of this money in doing 
a good piece of work. I dare say I know several nice 
old women who’d be overjoyed if they should find that 
they could insure a girl’s having a good time at a very 
tiny cost to them.” He had been looking away as he 
spoke, but just here he stole a glance at the girl’s face. 


138 


TOMMY CARTERET 


He was afraid that he had put the thing altogether too 
boldly, too straight from the shoulder, and he was much 
annoyed with himself for his lack of finesse. He half 
expected a burst of angry resentment and a curt refusal 
to listen to such a scheme, but he might have spared 
himself the distress, for the girl’s eyes were still fixed 
upon his, sombre as always, but nevertheless full of a 
certain wondering excitement, a certain eagerness. 

“They would be keen,” he went on; “these old 
women of whom I spoke would be keen to give a young 
girl, who was being cheated out of her fun, a chance to 
have that fun to her heart’s content. They’re — you 
see, they’re very kindly old parties, and they were once 
girls themselves. You must know some people in this 
town — ^What did you call it ? Effingham ? — who would 
be glad to take you in as a paying guest, sort of. Then 
you’d have plenty of pretty clothes and all the things a 
girl likes, and — and — well, the rest of it you could do 
yourself, couldn’t you? 

“There’s my plan,” he said, nodding at her cheer- 
fully. “It makes a lot of people happy — a girl 
because she finds a chance to lead a girl’s life — an 
old woman or two because she can do some good 
in the world with a bit of her idle money — and a 
little circle of people in this — what’s its name — town, 
because they’ve acquired something new and beautiful 
and interesting. There’s my plan! What do you 
think of it?” 

“Oh!” said Mariana, of the Dutch Creek road, 
softly. “Oh! Oh! There couldn’t be any such 
ladies,” she said, twisting her hands together before her, 
and she stared across, through the dusk, at the man’s 
face anxiously, with straining eyes, to see if he could be 
so cruel as to joke. 


A WENCH WITH CALLING EYES 139 


“Do you — mean it?” she demanded. “Do you 
reckon there really are ladies who would do that — 
ladies who haven’t ever even seen me? Oh, there 
aren’t, there aren’t! You’re poking fun at me.” 

“No,” said Tommy Carteret. “I’m quite serious. 
I wouldn’t chaff about that sort of thing. I think the 
women could easily be found. I’m certain of it. It’s 
you who are doing them the favour, you know. They’re 
always eager for such a chance, being, as I said, kindly 
old parties. Oh, yes! I mean it, right enough. It 
seems to me an excellent plan. I shall sit back on my 
hill-top yonder and think of you having such a very 
jolly time of it in — what’s its name town, and I shall 
feel the warmest glow of virtuous satisfaction I’ve ever 
known when I realise that I had a hand in the thing 
myself. — I shall feel,” he said, laughing gently, “a 
sort of first cousin to the fairy-godmother person 
who looks after Cinderella and the other unappre- 
ciated maidens in the story-books. Oh, I shall be 
immensely proud, you may be sure!” He halted, 
all at once, as he heard the girl move quickly in 
her seat, and heard her give a swift, smothered 
exclamation. He met her eyes, and it seemed to 
him that their eager excitement of a few moments 
before had altered to something like terror and 
dismay. 

“What’s the matter?” he demanded anxiously. 
“Don’t you like my scheme? It’s such a very nice 
scheme! You needn’t mind accepting favours from 
old women, you know. It isn’t as if they were men. 
A woman may take anything from another woman. 
What’s the matter?” 

“You—” said Mariana, of the Dutch Creek road, in 
an odd, low voice, “you— sit back on your hill-top? 


140 


TOMMY CARTERET 


You mean — ^you^re not going, too? You mean that 
you’d be — here — all the time ? ” 

“Here?” said young Tommy. “Of course, here. 
I shall never leave my hill-top. I’m here for always.” 
And a quick little flash of bitterness passed across his 
face and was gone again, like a passing shadow. 

“I don’t come into it at all,” he said. “I only start 
the wheels going, you see. Oh, no! I can’t leave my 
hill-top.” 

“I think,” said Mariana, still in her odd voice, “I 
think I’d rather not go. I reckon it couldn’t have been 
done anyhow, don’t you ? I’d rather stay.” And 
still Tommy did not see, though the girl’s eyes troubled 
him vaguely and set him to wondering. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It seems to me rather a 
pity. You’d best think it over. Don’t say yes or no 
just now, to-night. Think it over.” 

“I’d rather stay here,” she insisted, and looked 
away. “It — it isn’t so terribly bad.” She put out a 
hand quickly and touched his arm, as it were in appeal. 

“Please don’t think I — don’t thank you,” she said. 
“ I — ^you’re very good. I take it kindly of you, but I’d 
— I didn’t understand. I’d rather not go. No one,” 
she said, “ever cared enough before, whether I was 

happy or not, to want me to be happier. I wish I 

It’s good of you.” 

“Oh, never mind that!” said Tommy Carteret. 
“That doesn’t matter. And we won’t say anything 
more, if you’d rather not, about your going away — unless 
you change your mind, that is. We’ll talk about some- 
thing else. How does the shoulder get on ? I’ve not 
said a word about it, and that is very uncivil of me. 
You’re such a strong-looking young person that one 
never thinks of your having anything the matter with 


A WENCH WITH CALLING EYES 141 


you. YouM get a lot more sympathy if you looked 
more like the ordinary invalid.^’ 

“It doesn’t bother much now,” she said. “I shall 
have it out of the sling in a few days. It hasn’t pained 
me hardly any after that first week in bed. It’s only 
awkward because I can’t do anything but sit around. 
I can’t even dress myself.” 

The click of a horse’s hooves and the roll of wheels 
in the road beyond halted, and a man’s voice called 
out and was answered by another man’s voice from the 
other side of the house, out of sight of the two at the 
westward doorstep. There followed conversation, and 
presently the two voices approached the corner of the 
house. Mariana drew herself up with a frown of 
displeasure. 

“It’s Joe Borral,” she said. “I’m sorry he’s come.” 

Two men rounded the corner, and Tommy Carteret 
rose to meet them. One was old Dave Canfield, coatless 
and unshaven, furtively sullen of countenance. The 
other was the young man who had, a fortnight since, 
shambled through the village street a half-pace to the 
rear of Miss Mariana Canfield, to the delight of certain 
appreciative gentlemen at Winston’s. He was in his 
conquering raiment. His hair was pasted down over 
his not over-high brow in two beautiful and regular 
curls, and, for the better exposition of these, he wore his 
broad hat on the back of his head like a little girl out 
with her nurse for a morning in the park. Further, 
he was very smart with a red silk handkerchief knotted 
about his collarless neck, over a boiled shirt, and with 
purple embroidered braces which had patent buckles 
of glistening nickel. 

Old Dave Canfield stopped short when he saw the 
man who stood beside his daughter. He looked at young 


142 


TOMMY CARTERET 


Carteret for a lowering instant and said 
Then he turned abruptly and went back round the 
corner. The two had exchanged no greetings or further 
repartee since the night of Mariana’s dramatic home- 
coming two weeks previous to this. Although Tommy 
had crossed the Bottom perhaps half a dozen times, the 
other had remained carefully aloof. He lacked some- 
thing of the famous spirit of American hospitality. 

The young man of the purple braces advanced with 
an engaging smile and said Howdy” to the girl, who 
sat on the westward doorstep. Mariana did not rise, 
and she exhibited none of the common forms of joy, but 
she did betray a very obvious uneasiness and discomfort. 

“Mr. Borral, make you acquainted with Mr. Carter,” 
she said in the polite convention of the land. “Mr. 
Carter, Mr. Borral.” 

Mr. Borral took Tommy Carteret’s hand, grinning 
widely, and shook it with a limp grace. 

“You-all must be the city man ’at’s livin’ in Satter- 
lee’s house,” he said. 

“Yes,” said young Tommy, “I live in Satterlee’s 
house on Half-Breed Hill. It’s not a bad little cabin.” 

“I reckon,” pursued the tactful Mr. Borral happily, 
“I reckon you-all is bound to learn us farmers how to 
act like city doods.” 

“What makes you reckon that?” inquired Tommy 
Carteret; but the girl cut in hurriedly. 

“ Won’t you sit ? ” she said to the newcomer. “There 
aren’t any chairs out here, but you can sit on the door- 
step, if the grass is too damp.” 

“I reckon the grass won’t give me no measles nor 
consumption,” said Mr. Borral wittily. “I can stand 
it if he can,” indicating the other man, with an eloquent 
thumb. 


A WENCH WITH CALLING EYES 143 


“I reckon you have to be right careful of them kind 
of clo’es,” he sympathised, staring hard at the inoffen- 
sive flannels, of London origin, which incased Tommy 
Carteret. “They must come high.’’ There was no 
offense in his tone, only untutored curiosity and a 
certain unenvious approval — as one might approve the 
plumage of a blue-jay without desire of emulating it. 
But Tommy went red with embarrassment, and the 
girl once more sprang to the rescue. 

‘‘You don’t seem like you were very much interested 
in my broken shoulder,” she complained to Mr. Borral. 
“Most people would have asked how I did.” 

“Why, sho!” said Mr. Borral, lost in humiliation. 
“ So they would ! So they would! I reckon I’d plumb 
forgot. You don’t look like you had broke nothin’.” 

“Well, I have!” said the girl resentfully, and shifted 
the injured shoulder so that it came out of the shadow 
into the pale starlight. 

“Sho, now!” exclaimed Mr. Borral. “Well, if you 
ain’t ben a-hurting yourself!” He leaned forward, 
stretching out a hesitant finger, and touched the spiral 
coils of the bandage where they showed above the 
sling. 

“It’s shorely neat!” he said. “Does it hurt you?” 

“Not now,” said the girl. “It’s almost well again.” 
She reached across with her uninjured hand to shift 
the loop of the sling, and Mr. Borral, with playful 
intent, tried to capture the hand. The girl jerked 
away from him angrily, and Mr. Borral retired to his 
place and brayed with appreciation. Nevertheless, 
Tommy Carteret thought that his face, in the pale 
light, looked somewhat surprised, as at a rebuff he had 
not expected. 

Tommy rose to his feet. 


144 


TOMMY CARTERET 


must be getting back to my he said. The 

girl started forward quickly with a little murmur of 
protest, but sank back again in her place, and Tommy, 
after a civil word or two of satisfaction over her rapid 
convalescence, said good night to the two and went 
away. 

As he climbed Half-Breed Hill and, arriving at the 
cabin, set himself to making lights there, he was vaguely 
conscious of a feeling of irritation, an abrupt reversal 
of mood, which, still vaguely, he traced to the gentle- 
man with the purple-embroidered braces. He said to 
himself that he had, before Mr. Borraks arrival, been 
interested and absorbed, not as usual by his own trials, 
but by the troubles of another being. He had been taken, 
for a little time, quite out of himself. Emotions long 
buried — emotions of sympathy and pity — ^had been 
stirred in him, and a strong desire awakened to better the 
girhs lot in life, as he could so easily do. He filled and 
lighted a pipe and sat down before the littered writing- 
table where the red lamp hung. His mind ran back 
over the evening, and certain eyes, sombre, tragic, 
joyless unspeakably, gloomed from the shadows at 
the far end of the room. 

“He cometh not,” she said. 

She said: “I am aweary, a weary-— 

I would that I were dead.” 

That a girl should have such eyes — an ignorant, un- 
enlightened girl of the hills! Young Tommy twisted 
uneasily in his chair and scowled at the shadows in 
the far corner. They meant nothing, those glooming 
eyes. They were eyes, not windows to a tragic soul — 
eyes set in a most commonplace head by way of a grim 
joke, by way of showing a man how much his judgment 


A WENCH WITH CALLING EYES 145 


was worth — the worth of a handful of grass. Still, 
to have got her out of this squalid hole, sent her to her 
silly little town where she might be like other girls! 
What had she meant by all at once refusing to go? 
Tommy ventured a dozen possible reasons, most of 
them untenable as arguments — one of them, flattering 
to himself (and, by the way, true). At this he gave a 
bitter laugh of amusement and self-scorn. 

‘‘Good God, am I turning vain?^’ he demanded. 
“My head must be going at last. Nonsense! Who’s 
to make a girl out ? Who’s to fathom a girl’s mind ? 
Not I, for one! Egad, but she was handsome, with the 
sun in her eyes, and her cheeks flushed. There’s at 
least a fine animal ! What’s inside to make it human ? 
Aye, there’s the rub! What’s inside? How’s one to 
know? That young farmer chap, now! I expect he 
is — What do they call it? — courting her. I expect 
he’s as good as any of them, hereabouts, but what an 
apology for a human being! What a mate for that 
splendid gipsy girl! Eh, she has eyes! Were I 
alive, instead of dead, and an automaton walking in 
my place, I expect they’d haunt me. Eh, she has eyes, 
indeed! I wish Carnardon might see them. They’d 
give him a text for more sermons. I’ll warrant. They’d 
give him still more argument for ” He halted sud- 

denly, pipe in air, his eyes wide with a new thought, 
and he sat quite still and well-nigh breathless till the fire 
died out of the pipe he held. 

“‘Marry — one of these girls I see — driving past to 
and from the— village,”’ he quoted presently, low, 
under his breath, in broken words. “‘Better, a 
thousand times, drop to their level and live a man’s 
life than — sit outside in your solitary hell.’” 

Eh, she had eyes, that splendid gipsy girl, and lips 


146 


TOMMY CARTERET 


that were red, and blood that leaped red under her 
cheeks! ‘‘Why not?” said Tommy Carteret in a 
whisper, staring over his dead pipe into the shadows. 
Better a thousand times than this solitary hell. Old 
Henry Carnardon had said that, and if Henry Carnar- 
don did not know, who, in God’s world, did ? 

“Why not?” whispered young Carteret, and, though 
he was dead and an automaton walked abroad in his 
place, something stirred within the automaton’s works. 
Something like a heart sent its blood a beat faster 
through the veins. She had eyes, that gipsy girl! 

But his moods, it would seem, never could last more 
than a few minutes at a stretch. In ten he was laughing 
once more — his bitter, sneering laugh of amusement 
and self-disgust. Marry! he marry! 

“You’re mad!” he said as he had said before to Lord 
Henry Carnardon. “You don’t know what you’re 
saying. Marry, indeed! And to a red-cheeked, 
black-haired girl — a hill man’s proper mate, a wench 
with calling eyes, a wench common as earth, vulgar as 
the commonest — witness her blackguarding of her 
father on the night of her injury! — a common wench 
smeared thinly over with a wash of civilising! How 
quickly she would shed that on occasion! Marry, 
indeed! ” Young Tommy threw back his head, laugh- 
ing, and his eyes fell upon the Temple gate and that 
which sat within. The laugh stopped short. 

“ Marry! ” said Tommy Carteret in a shaking whisper. 
“Marry? Not while God’s in His heaven.” 


CHAPTER XI 


A Little Cloud Comes Over the Hills 

Here, at this point, I am sorely beset by temptation, 
here where young Tommy’s story finds itself, for a little 
space, dropping to an easy, uneventful jog-trot, or, to 
put it more aptly, a lull — the lull before the coming of 
the whirlwind which was born of that wind Tommy 
had so innocently sown. Here, I should like to sit 
back in my chair and tell stories. They would not be 
without interest, I think. They would cluster round the 
central story, though they would not advance it. I 
should like to tell how Tommy spent his time in these 
slack weeks; how he rode and drove through the hill 
country, meeting the strange hill people, through the 
hills and away to the Dutch Creek land where the 
Germans — for, of course, they are not Dutch at all — 
tend their neat, tidy farms, women and men alike 
working in the fields. I should like to tell about the 
wonderful dance he attended, one night, escorted by 
the faithful Jared, a hill dance to which the hill people 
came from miles away in carts and wagons; of how a 
young man with a violin sat on a table and scraped old, 
old tunes the while he ‘‘called off’’ in a beautiful tenor 
voice for the heavy-footed dancers to blunder through 
their figures (no round dances, mind you; they are 
immoral; so are low-cut frocks, but so are not certain 
stone jugs which arrive with each wagon and are 
hidden behind a convenient shrub; so also are not 
147 


148 


TOMMY CARTERET 


certain transactions which occur between dances in the 
darkness without). I should like to tell about the 
dinners and long evenings at the hermitage, on the 
village road, when Henry Carnardon, breaking through 
his shell of long silence, told tales and marvels out of a 
half-forgotten past, and drew warnings from the same. 

But, if temptation besets me here, and I look with 
longing eyes at the fat note-book out of which I might 
spin such length of yarn, still, at my other elbow, sits 
conscience, inexorable, prodding me on* to the stronger, 
grimmer deeds which wait at the end of Tommy^s little 
breathing-space. 

It was, I think, about three weeks after the night 
upon which Tommy attempted to enact the role of 
fairy godmother, that Jared, who was by way of being a 
sort of local gossip, betrayed signs, one morning, while 
clearing away the breakfast things, of bearing a weight 
upon his mind. He protracted his simple labour far 
beyond its needs, he often shook a gloomy and care- 
worn head, and he obviously manufactured conversa- 
tion. Tommy was in a rather bad humour — ^he had 
had a white night — and at last turned upon the man 
with some impatience. 

“What is it?^’ he demanded. “You want to say 
something. Why don’t you say it?” Jared dropped 
a dish. 

“Well, you see, Mr. Carter,” he said, “it’s this-a-way 
— them little carpets wants beatin’ agen, don’t they?” 

“Get on with it!” said Tommy irritably. “Never 
mind the rugs.” 

“Well, you see,” said Jared, shuffling — “I’ll take ’em 
out this mawnin’ an’ whop ’em — you see, it’s that there 
ornery young Borral, him as w^is sparkin’ Mariana 
Canfield.” 


A CLOUD OVER THE HILLS 


149 


** Aah ! ” said young Tommy, turning about. “ What 
of him?^’ 

“Well, you see,^' said the anxious Jared, “he — he’s 
ben a-gettin’ some extry-ordinary yarn from ole Dave 
about you an’ the gal, an’ he’s right madded about it.” 

“Some extraordinary tale?” said young Tommy. 
“ What the devil do you mean ?” 

“Well, ole Dave,” said the other, “has took agiii 
you, I dunno why. He’s ben a-talkin’ agin’ you from 
the firs’ to everybody which’d listen ” — Tommy nodded 
— “an’ he’s told Joe Borral some tale about the gal — 
well, the gal gettin’ her arm broke over hyuh along 
with you-all. He says ’at you brung her home most 
daid. He was for a-turnin’ her out o’ the house, but 
she sassed him back, an’ her mother stood along with 
her an’ said ’at if the gal went she’d go too. Ole 
Dave is plumb afeared of the gal — on’y thing he’s 
afeared of, I reckon.” 

Tommy sat quiet in his chair by the door. Anger 
was hot at his heart, but he made no sign, for he knew 
how futile the anger was. He had learned a bit about 
these hill people during the past few weeks. 

“Go on!” he said briefly. “What about this 
Borral ?” 

Jared dropped another plate and wiped his fevered 
brow. 

“He’s a-rampin’ an’ a-rampagin’ aroun’,” said he, 
“carryin’ a shot-gun an’ allowin’ ’at he’ll shoot you.” 

Tommy Carteret gave a short laugh. 

“Why doesn’t he come here and do it ?” he inquired. 
“I’m usually at home.” 

“He’s too ornery,” explained the troubled Jared. 
“He’s afeared. He’s one o’ them ’at always talks 
loud — like some varieties o’ dawgs.” 


150 


TOMMY CARTERET 


fancy I’m safe enough,” said Tommy. But 
Jared’s brow was still anxious and lie shook his head. 

‘‘ Now, don’t you be too sure, Mr. Carter,” he urged. 
‘T know them kind of people. They’re cowards, but 
sometimes they get a right good load o’ licker into ’em 
an’ they’re likely to make trouble. If I was you-all, 
I’d carry that there little revolover o’ yourn whilst I was 
goin’ aroun’. It ain’t a-goin’ to do no harm, an’ it 
might come handy. Yes, it might. Joe Borral’s 
powerful wroughted up.” 

Tommy’s angry face relaxed, and he gave the faithful 
Jared a clap on the shoulder as he passed by him into 
the other room. 

Don’t you worry,” he said cheerfully. ‘T shall 
die, one day, I expect, but it won’t be from Joe Borral’s 
shot-gun. I know a bit about that sort of man myself. 
You’re a good chap, though, Jared, and I’m glad you 
spoke up. Let me know of anything more you hear. 
And, now, I’d like to have the mare saddled. I’m 
going to the village.” 

‘‘You’ll take the little revolover ? ” demanded Jared, 
but Tommy only smiled, and the man went out, shaking 
a gloomy head and muttering anxiously to himself. 

Tommy rode to town through the blazing sun, and 
gloom rode with him, darkening the pitiless glare. 
What was one to do in the face of this black hatred, 
this intolerant hostility? He had learned, as has been 
said, something of the narrow, tortuous minds of these 
hill people, but to-day he felt once more, as he had 
felt that first night at Canfield’s, a sense of utter im- 
potence, a helpless, baffled rage which knew itself 
helpless. What was one to do in a land where a 
father will deliberately blacken his daughter to that 
daughter’s suitor for hatred against another man? 


A CLOUD OVER THE HILLS 


151 


The mare had little ease this morning; she was not even 
allowed to pause at the hermitage. Once they passed 
a neighbour, a man who lived not far from Half-Breed 
Hill, driving homeward from the village in a clattering, 
springless wagon. Tommy Carteret called out a 
cheerful ‘‘Howdy,’’ but the man looked upon him 
darkly and returned but a surly nod. Tommy cursed 
under his breath. 

“Borral’s work!” he said. “That chap borrowed a 
churn of me only three days ago.” 

At Winston’s, the customary jury of village fathers 
sat in the shade, chairs tilted back. Some of them 
spoke to young Tommy in their usual tone of geniality. 
Others only stared, and Tommy made a mental note 
of which they were. Inside, Winston was, as ever, 
effusive in welcome. He warmly shook the new- 
comer’s hand, inquiring after his health, but, in the act, 
he winked significantly and jerked his head toward the 
rear of the store, where a group of men stood talking, 
one of them loudly. 

“Look out for that there Joe Borral,” said the 
friendly Winston in a low tone. “He’s shorely on the 
war-path.” 

Tommy moved toward the back of the room, looking 
into a show-case for something he wanted. He glanced 
once toward the group of standing men, and nodded to 
such of them as he recognised. He noted that their 
voices had dropped as he approached, and that their 
manner seemed awkward and embarrassed. They 
looked toward one of their number — it was Joe Borral 
— as if to see what he was going to do, but it appeared 
that he had formed no immediate plans. Tommy 
found in the show-case what he had been looking for — 
a razor-strap, paid for it, and stood, for a moment. 


152 


TOMMY CAKTERET 


chatting with Winston. The voices of the group 
behind him were again raised as he moved a bit away, 
and among them Joe BorraFs was conspicuous. 
Tommy caught a reference to ‘‘City dood’s^’ clothes 
whieh, the speaker opined, had been constructed by a 
dressmaker. The remark was obviously intended for 
insult and as obviously intended to be overheard. The 
other men in the party broke into laughter, awkward 
and shamed, or sneering and derisive, and a little gust 
of anger flared up in Tommy Carteret. 

He swung about and took a step toward the back of 
the room, and his face, as always when he was angry, 
went white and red and white again. Unconcernedly 
to stand before it required more courage than any man 
there possessed, and there was a quick, uneasy stir 
among the group. 

“I believe you were discussing me,” said young 
Tommy sharply to the man Borral. ‘‘Am I right?” 
His tone had an odd cold abruptness, and well matched 
his cold gaze. There was no answer, but another little 
uneasy stir. 

“You meant to be insulting, I expect,” he went on. 
“I should like you to know, and I should like these 
other gentlemen to hear, that nothing you can say, here 
or elsewhere, will insult me, because it is not of enough 
consequence and because you are not the sort of person 
whose words bear any weight. As to your silly jibes 
about my clothes, I can’t expect you to realise that you 
are merely rude, not at all funny. My clothes are my 
own, and I shall wear such as please me. You have 
the same liberty. I shall not criticise yours.” He 
moved a step nearer, looking hard into Borral’s eyes, 
and the group instinctively drew back as he approached. 
They were not all cowardly men, but this method was 


A CLOUD OVER THE HILLS 


153 


as new to them as the words young Carteret spoke, and, 
moreover, he looked dangerous. People always longed 
to get away from young Tommy when he was angry. 
He looked far more dangerous than he was. 

“I’ve been hearing,” he said, “some talk about your 
looking for me with a shot-gun and boasting that you 
would do me up. I understand that some one has been 
telling you lies about my conduct, and that you have 
constituted yourself a sort of combined judge, jury, and 
hangman. I dislike people who threaten and then fail 
to carry out their threats. Have you your shot-gun 
here ? This is a convenient hour and place. Why not 
have it over with?” He saw the quick, instinctive 
glance which several of the men turned toward a shot- 
gun that leaned against the wall near by. 

“Is that your gun?” he demanded. 

The other man shuffled his feet and muttered under 
his breath. He was a poor thing, as boasters commonly 
are — a pitifully poor thing. 

“What’s it to you?” he growled, shifting his furtive 
eyes. 

“It’s my funeral,” said young Tommy patiently. 
“At least, it was to have been, I understand.” He 
looked from the shifty-eyed creature before him to the 
gun, and back again, waiting. 

“Aren’t you going to shoot me?” he asked. Borral 
cursed under his breath, and his face was crimson. 
Young Tommy looked upon him for a moment, con- 
temptuously. 

“What a damned coward you are!” he said at last, 
and, turning his back, went out of the store and down 
to the street. 

It had been a foolish action, the whole of it, and 
he admitted it to a chiding inward voice as he rode 


154 


TOMMY CARTERET 


away in the sunlight, but he had been angry and the 
temptation strong. 

expect IVe made a very bitter enemy,** he said, 
sighing. *T expect that chap will never forgive me for 
facing him down before the others; but it was fun. 
Shot-gun! Rot! That coward would get behind a 
tree to shoot a rabbit! 1*11 stop in and tell Carnardon. 
Carnardon *11 laugh.** 

But Carnardon did not laugh when the two sat to- 
gether over their whiskey and water in the cool dim 
library. He shook his head and looked grave. 

“I*m afraid you*ve made a mistake,** he said. 
would have been better to let the fellow go on boasting 
and bragging unchecked. He*d have taken it out in 
boasting then, because it is evident that he is a coward. 
Now, you have shamed him publicly. He must take 
some measures or lose all standing among his friends. 
He will probably try to shoot you from behind a tree, 
one day.** 

** I think not,** said young Tommy. “ Even that re- 
quires some courage — the consequences do, anyhow. 
And he has none. Of course, he*ll lie about me and 
blackguard me and harm me in every possible way 
that is safe for himself, and, on that account, I shouldn*t 
have attacked him, but I don*t think he*ll try to kill me. 
You haven*t seen him. I have.** But still Henry 
Carnardon shook his head. 

‘‘He*ll do it,** said he. “One day, he*ll do it. One 
day he will fill himself up with this raw, poisonous 
whiskey they drink hereabouts, and he*ll do it. I 
wish you had let him alone.** 

Tommy stirred his glass with a meditative hand, and 
he smiled down into it for a little time in silence. His 
face had changed. 


A CLOUD OVER THE HILLS 


155 


'‘If I really thought that possible,” he said gently, 
"I should thank God for having provoked the man 
to it, and I should pray that it might come soon. But 
I have no such hope. The chap is a harmless coward. 
No, I shall live on in perfect safety. My prophetic 
eye sees a vista of years — a road with white milestones, 
each stone for a year, and I cannot see the end of 
the road.” He laughed quietly to himself at his 
little conceit, turning and stirring the long glass 
between his hands, and staring down into it as if it 
were there that he saw his long perspective of road with 
the white milestones. 

Henry Carnardon sat up in his chair with a sigh. 

"I do not like to repeat advice,” he said, "and re- 
jected advice, above all, but I should be glad to see you 
marry this girl. She would seem to be a handsome 
creature, and a shade above her surroundings, from 
what you have said. If you look forward to a lifetime 
of exile here, why not make it, after a fashion, a com- 
fortable exile? It goes without saying that the girl is 
not of your class, but that matters little. In the course 
of a few lonely years you will come to see that class is 
but a hollow thing. One adjusts one’s self to one’s 
environments. Such a marriage in the world outside 
would be a calamity; here it is only natural. What 
shall it profit you that you are superior in birth and 
breeding and education to these hill people? They 
vaguely feel it and resent it, but they do not envy you. 
They think of you merely as something unpleasantly 
strange. It is as if a single inhabitant of some more 
advanced planet should be dropped into London or into 
New York. Men would deem him, not superior, but 
strange. It would seem to us no extraordinary thing 
for him to marry one of our daughters. It would put 


156 


TOMMY CARTERET 


him in the light of sensibly attempting to make himself 
one of us. No, my friend, superiority to one^s sur- 
roundings is not a good thing; it is a bad one. It 
profits nobody, does no manner of good. It makes for 
only solitude and pain.’’ He laughed a little, pouring 
himself more whiskey from the near-by decanter. 

“This takes on the character of a lecture,” he ob- 
served. “I shall write it down. I had no idea that I 
could be so eloquent and, at the same time, so sensible.” 

Tommy Carteret frowned, half irritably. 

“You are bent upon arguing me into matrimony,” 
he said. “And I am as bent upon keeping out of 
complications. Time, as you suggest, may one day 
drive me to it, but for the present I cannot face the 
thing. I grant you,” he said after a pause, “that, in 
the abstract, you are right enough. A man wasn’t 
meant to live alone. There are times when — there 
are moods when the thing attracts one. After all, one 
is a man, and the nature in one makes its call. She is 
a handsome girl. One has one’s temptations, but, I 
tell you, it must not be. I am a wreck cast up on the 
sands. Let me die and go to pieces alone, as a wreck 
should! Why should I drag another — others still, into 
my ruin? What right have I?” He rose from his 
chair shaking a stubborn head. 

“Don’t talk to me of marriage!” said he. “It is 
wholly out of the question. Meanwhile I must be going 
home. On the way I shall pray that that cowardly 
fool Borral be inspired to put an end to my troubles 
with his shot-gun. Though I know quite well he won’t.” 


CHAPTER XII 


In the Gully Where the Blackberries Grew 

Toward the end of this week two letters arrived from 
New York, one in the hand of old Thomas Carteret, the 
other in the angular, uncompromising penmanship of 
Arabella Crowley. They had not come quite in the 
same post, but they reached young Tommy together, 
for one had lain waiting two or three days at Win- 
stones. Tommy opened his father’s first, but, like its 
predecessor, he skimmed it for news of import and left 
much unread. It was a sort of shrinking delicacy in 
him. He recoiled from the sight of poor old Tommy’s 
cowardice lying open in its nakedness. His face flushed 
as he tore the paper across. Old Tommy prattled 
again of illness; he grew cheaply hysterical, spoke in 
vague terms of righting the matter in a vague future, of 
a woman’s honour which must be shielded — Honour j 
so please you! He might well have had his first miser- 
able screed stereotyped and copies sent to Egypt from 
time to time. Young Tommy’s face flushed, but it was 
not all in vicarious shame and shamed contempt. 
There was a strain of pity in it for the unconscious wail 
that had run through the old man’s words; such a help- 
less wail of strength far overtaxed, of manifest duty 
manifestly too great for feeble powers. 

‘‘Poor old governor!” said young Tommy as he slit 
the envelope of Arabella Crowley’s letter. 

157 


158 


TOMMY CARTERET 


Arabella was quite herself, half tender, half fierce, 
scolding the while she stroked. 

“You don’t deserve another word from me so long as 
you live,” she said. “You’ve called me in plain language 
a meddling old busybody, and I’ve a good mind to 
throw you over upon your own devices; I leave you to 
judge the value of those.” 

She stormed on in this fashion for several pages and 
young Tommy laughed, but toward the end came a 
paragraph which he read twice. 

“A bit of news,” said Arabella, “which I give you, 
sans 'phrase. My doctor-man is Abeles, who is by way 
of being a heart specialist, but keeps up a bit of general 
practice, as in my case, among his old friends. In a 
roundabout way he gave me to understand, last week, 
that the Hartwell man, whom you call your jailer, has 
been to him for advice as to his heart. This is all I 
know of the matter, and I will not comment upon it, for 
you know as much about heart-disease as I do. People 
affected by it may live out their spans or they may die 
to-morrow. Perhaps I should not have told you, but I 
have a fancy that you would like to know of any littlest, 
remotest sign of hope. While I am speaking of Hart- 
well, however, I may tell you that the little woman — 
Mrs. Hartwell, of course — ^has been to see me several 
times and has poured out her woes to me till I am well- 
nigh drowned of them. She is, of course, utterly 
wretched. She lives in her husband’s house, but they 
never meet save in public, where they go about together 
as before. I have done my best to make the poor 
woman tell her husband the truth, but without success. 
She is weak as water. Tommy, but there is one rather 
strong thing in her, and that is her love for your father. 
She will not betray him. I wonder how much he ever 


WHERE THE BLACKBERRIES GREW 159 


cared for her. No more than for the others, I expect. 
Still, despite this firmness, I have hopes of her. She 
never sees your father, and her position at home is 
almost intolerable. She may, in time, break down. 
At any rate, I think her our best hope. God knows. 
Tommy, that I shrink from the thought of the man I 
once cared a great deal for brought to book for his sins, 
but he has sowed, and the sowers should reap. I shrink 
from that far less than I rebel at the thought of your 
unjust exile. Hope on, Tommy! I’m hoping always.” 

Tommy frowned with displeasure. 

“That woman mustn’t give the thing away!” he said. 
“Aunt Arabella mustn’t let her if she tries. Confound 
Aunt Arabella, anyhow, for a meddling, interfering old 
— dear! Is there no stopping her?” Then he turned 
back once more to the paragraph about Hartwell and 
re-read it. He found himself at the end with his own 
heart thumping and a mad wild hope whirling in his 
brain ; but the thing endured for no more than a moment, 
and depression came hard upon its heels, for the belief 
that this exile was to be endless had become oddly, in- 
credibly strong in him. He would have rejected a much 
more tenable hope than old Arabella had been able to 
offer. 

“Those heart-people live forever,” he said gloomily. 
“ I’ve known them to die at ninety. He*d last, anyhow. 
If it were galloping consumption, he’d last. Hatred 
would keep him alive.” Tommy crumpled the letter 
between his hands and threw it from him, and he sat 
for some minutes staring at it where it lay on the floor, 
and thinking of old Arabella and of his jailer, Hartwell, 
and of* the poor little woman whom Hartwell called wife. 
Oddly enough, there had been in Arabella’s letter no 
mention at all of Sibyl — I wonder why. Arabella must 


160 


TOMMY CARTERET 


have had her occult reasons — and Tommy told himself 
in one swift thought, not daring to dwell upan it, that he 
was glad. Had there been news of her he would have 
seized upon it, read it, re-read it, twisted the words into 
a thousand meanings — crowded a thousand other mean- 
ings in between the lines, and, probably, ended it all by 
a fit of blackest, bitterest gloom. Now, however, he 
picked up the crumpled sheets from the floornvhere he 
had thrown them, and dropped them with the torn 
shreds of old Tommy’s wail into the Chinese basket by 
the writing-table. Then he took up his broad Panama 
hat and went out into the morning sun. 

He had no destination in mind, but strolled aimlessly 
inward, along the eastern slope of his hill, toward the 
main ridge from which it jutted. Here, near the junction 
of the two, ran, still inward, a little, narrow, tortuous, 
steep-banked gully, an ancient water-course, no doubt, 
but now overgrowm with young mulberry trees and 
scrub-oaks and elders. Down in its bed blackberries 
throve in plenty. Tommy made his way down the deep, 
steep slope, clinging to shrubs and branches. At the 
bottom he found a tiny bank of grass beside a trickle of 
water. A spreading mulberry made a spot of shade, 
and it was cool and green and breathed comfort. He 
sat down on the bit of turf, wetting his hands in the cold 
spring-water, and drawdng them across his head and 
face. It was very still here; only a solitary cricket away 
somewhere in the brush kept up a busy, unceasing 
monologue, and a forlorn little turkey-chick, strayed 
from the fold, and witless after its kind, stood in a space 
of quivering sun, wings drooping, head on high, and 
peeped mournfully. From time to time a bumblebee 
droned past about his business, and once a small, hot 
gnd dusty bl^ck snake came to the spring to drink, but 


WHERE THE BLACKBERRIES GREW 161 


caught sight of the intruder and made impolite faces at 
him. 

“I should very much like,” said young Tommy Car- 
teret, stifling a yawn, ^^a hatful of those blackberries 
yonder. They look good. They smell good, too. By 
Jove, the air's full of them! But I'm hanged if I'll get 
up. I'm too comfy." 

He did get up, though, rather hastily, for the black- 
berry bushes, a little way down the gully, crackled and 
stirred, and a moving gleam of white showed among 
them. 

'' Good morning! " said young Tommy. The gleam 
of white came into the open sunlight, and it was Mariana 
Canfield, with a basket on her arm and her hands stained 
red from the berries. She said Oli ! " in a low, startled 
tone when she saw the man standing there, and then, 
after a moment, came slowly toward him. 

She wore a white frock of some very thin material. 
It was not too clean — it had stains of earth and of green 
leaves and red fruit upon it, and it had the air of being 
long since outgrown. It was short, coming no more 
than to the girl's ankles, and the sleeves, which she had 
rolled up to the elbows, were too tight. But in it, small 
and ill-made as it was, her strong young figure stood 
straight and full — too full for her years — giving form 
and grace to the formless garment. She had been wear- 
ing also a sunbonnet of bright scarlet, but this had fallen 
back from her head, and hung at her shoulders, throwing 
her black hair, damp and curled with the heat, about 
her temples, into strong relief. It may have been that 
hot still place, with its over-sweet odour of crushed ber- 
ries, or it may have been the contrast between the thin 
white rag of a garment and the dark splendid beauty of 
the girl — ^rms aii.d throat bare, cheeks glowipg, breast 


162 


TOMMY CAETERET 


heaving in its too tight confines. Certainly the odd 
spell of overabundant vitality which hung ever about 
her had never before been so powerful, had never called 
so loud. Tommy Carteret, who, in his bitter gloom, 
was as far as a man may be from the appeal of things 
fleshly, felt it and scowled at himself for the feeling. 

“How did you find your way here?” asked the girl. 

“Oh, I happened in!” said he. “I’d never been 
down here, so I came to see what it was like. Good 
fortune comes to one quite unexpectedly at times.” 
The girl looked at him for a moment with puzzled eyes. 
She was almost without a sense of humour, as women 
of her passionate, gipsy type are apt to be, and she 
never felt quite sure whether Tommy’s polite banter 
was seriously meant or was by way of poking fun at her. 

“I’ve been picking blackberries,” she volunteered, 
setting down the half-filled basket. 

“Ah, now!” said young Tommy, “I had suspected 
that. I’m very quick at guessing things.” He laughed 
gently, and the girl once more turned her puzzled eyes 
upon him, suspecting ridicule. 

“We might sit down for a bit, and rest,” he suggested. 
“I’ll help you fill your basket presently.” He made 
room for her on the turf in the spot of cool shade, and 
she sat down, dipping her berry-stained hands in the 
water as Tommy had done earlier. 

“I’ve got all I need,” she said. “I was just ready to 
go home. It wouldn’t do, anyhow, I reckon, for you to 
pick. You’d get stains all over your clothes.” 

Tommy gave a little exasperated laugh. 

“Shall I never live down my clothes?” he cried. 
“They seem to annoy everybody. Really, they’re very 
ordinary clothes, but the community here can’t seem to 
become used to them. A gentleman in the village made 


WHERE THE BLACKBERRIES GREW 163 


remarks about them, in my hearing, the other day. 
Rude, I call it. What?’' 

But the girl turned to him swiftly, and her eyes were 
troubled. 

“ Joe Borral!” she said. “Oh, I know, I know! I 
heard about it from your Jared’s folks, yesterday. I 
wish — I wish you hadn’t madded him. He might — do 
something to you.” 

Tommy allowed himself a skeptical laugh. 

“ I don’t like to say unpleasant things about any friend 
of yours,” he said. “Indeed, I’m sorry the subject has 
come up. I didn’t think you knew about the matter. 
But as to Mr. Borral doing anything to me, I have grave 
doubts. He is not a young man who would do things. 
He is best at talking.” 

The girl’s cheeks flushed, and she gave a little quick 
laugh. 

“I wish I might have been there,” she said. “It 
must have been fine to see you scaring the life out of Joe 
Borral. Jared’s brother told me all about it. He said 
he wouldn’t want to have any quarrel with you if you 
was right mad at him.” Then, all at once, her eyes 
clouded again, and she turned to young Tommy 
anxiously. 

“You don’t know what you’ve been and done,” she 
said. “Of course, you couldn’t do anything else — I 
know that — but you’ve got Joe Borral crazy-mad against 
you and — and — there’s others that would help him if he 
— if he wanted to do anything. Maybe you don’t know 
what he — thinks, what people have been telling him 
about you and — about you ” 

“Yes,” said Tommy Carteret quietly, “I know. If 
the man who told him, who put him up to all this non- 
sense, had been any other man than — ^he was, I should 


164 


TOMMY CARTERET 


have half killed him some days ago. As it is, I’m 
helpless.” 

** Oh, yes!” said the girl bitterly. It was my father. 
I’m — ^glad you know. He’s told Joe a pack of the 
worst kind of lies. It’s a nice sort of father to have, 
aint it? I tried to make Joe understand that there 
wasn’t any truth in it. I told him just how the whole 
thing happened, and that you’d saved my life. I told 
him you — ^you didn’t ever — even look at me except for 
politeness. Why should you ? Of course, he wouldn’t 
believe me. He’d rather believe my father — the dog! — 
and so would all these other men, and women.” 

“ But why ? ” cried Tommy Carteret. “ Why do they 
want to believe such blackguardly things about me? 
What have I ever done to them ? Have I injured them 
in coming here ? Have I hurt anybody ? Have I acted 
in any way as I shouldn’t ? See ! I came here quietly 
and bought a bit of land from a man who was anxious 
to sell it. I paid him its full value and more. I inter- 
fered with nobody; I asked favours of nobody. When 
favours were asked of me, I granted them gladly. Why 
are these people so bitter against me ?” The girl shook 
her head with a little helpless gesture. 

‘‘I don’t know,” she said. *^Or at least I couldn’t 
make you understand. It’s because you’re different, I 
reckon. They don’t like you because you’re not like 
them. They just naturally suspicion every one they 
don’t understand. And about — about what they’re 
saying now, they believe what my father has told them, 
because, if they’d ben in your place, they’d have acted 
like he says you acted. You don’t know them, but I 
do.” 

Tommy turned his head away, frowning dully out 
across the little gully, but the girl dragged herself 


WHERE THE BLACKBERRIES GREW 165 


nearer to him, half sitting, half kneeling on the turf, and 
caught at his arm with her two hands. 

“Please,” she begged, “couldn’t you go away some- 
wheres for a little while — ^just a little while, until this 
thing is over with? I’m — afraid for you. I tell you, 
you don’t know these people here. They’ll do some- 
thing horrible if that ornery pup gets them madded to it. 
I’ve heard more about it than you have, I know. 
Couldn’t you go away for a while ? ” 

Tommy turned his eyes back to her face. He was 
still frowning, and his jaw was squared a bit, for the girl 
in urging him to run from physical danger had not been 
tactful. Tommy was one to court such, not to flee from 
it. But his frown relaxed when he saw her face, for it 
was genuinely frightened and full of anxiety. Her eyes 
were wide and clouded, and her cheeks a bit paler than 
their wont. Her breast strained at the white, tight, 
flimsy cloth that bound it. 

“Please!” she begged. “Please!” 

Tommy shook a stubborn head. 

“I stop here,” said he. “Really, I think you’re 
exaggerating the danger. You’re giving your friend 
Borral credit for more courage and executive ability 
than he possesses, but, in any case, I stop here. I’m 
not in the habit of running away from things.” The 
girl’s hands shook his arm desperately. 

“ I tell you,” she cried again, “you don’t know. You 
don’t realise. You’re thinking that these people are 
like your own kind of people. They ain’t. They 
aren’t nothing like them. Can’t nothing I say make 
you go ? Isn’t there nothing ’at would make you see ? ” 
It was strange to hear her fairly correct English drop 
from her in a moment of excitement, and the strong 
vernacular return. 


166 


TOMMY CAETERET 


She crept closer still, until she was leaning against 
him, as she gripped his arm, until her breast lifted and 
fell against his shoulder. Her voice dropped to a sort 
of wheedling, coaxing tenderness. 

‘‘Ef you won’t go for yo’ own sake,” she said, ‘^go for 
mine. You might — think a little about me. You know 
what they’re a-saying. Please, please, go!” 

Tommy drew a long breath, and his hands, at his two 
sides, gripped and tore the soft turf. The girl’s hold 
upon his arm, the nearness of her splendid dark face 
to his, the lift and swell of her breathing against his 
shoulder, stirred his blood, and stirred him, too, to a 
sort of anger that he could be affected in this way — 
set him to resisting it stubbornly. He had need of 
clear thought, untempered by emotion — clear reason 
unwarmed by feeling, for this girl’s case was indeed 
bad, and something must be done about it. It was 
the girl who suffered from the slander, not the man. 
Somehow, these scandalmongers must be checked. 

‘H’m’ sorry,” he said; “I’m more sorry than I can 
say. You’re quite right. I must consider you. The 
bad part of it is that I cannot go away. There are 
reasons — I may not go into them — which must keep 
me here always. I’m sorry. The trouble has sprung 
from such innocent little sources that I can scarcely 
realise how far it has gone. The only thing I can do 

is to keep away from you ” He felt the girl start 

suddenly against his shoulder. “If I keep strictly on 
my side of the Little Bottom, if it is known that I never 
see you or speak to you, these fools may realise they 
were too quick with their suspicions. I will promise 
to do that, if you like. It is the only thing I can 
think of.” 

Then the girl drew a little away from him and 


WHERE THE BLACKBERRIES GREW 167 


dropped her face into her hands, kneeling upon the 
turf, and began to sob very bitterly. And then, at 
last, I think, young Tommy knew. He had been long 
blind. Significant things had come before his eyes, 
but found them fixed upon distance. Significant 
words and tones and sighs had come to his ears, but 
found them dull and unheeding. Now, at last, I think 
he knew, for he looked upon the girl, bowed over her 
shamed sobbing, and his cheeks paled a bit, and he 
said in a still whisper: 

‘‘Good God!” And he said it again and again. 
The stir her near presence had roused in him, the 
quickened blood her breasCs touch had evoked, died 
away suddenly, leaving a chill which sent a shiver over 
him from head to foot. 

There be men among us yet, I thank God, in whose 
clean hearts walk chivalry and honour, not apart, like 
strangers, each with separate scope, but hand in hand, 
as twins. To such, duty is a simple thing, admitting 
of no argument. A woman in distress is to be suc- 
coured, not counting the cost. 

To young Tommy, at this moment, the matter pre- 
sented itself SO: — plain, simple, undeniable. Here 
wept a woman against whom, innocent, scandal had 
cried out, leaving her in shame and grief. Through 
himself, innocent also, the shame had come. With- 
out him, she had been happy to-day. There seemed 
but one answer to that. And yet he could not make it. 
The chill settled about his heart, paralysing him, rob- 
bing him of the power of speech or movement. Voices 
shrilled within him, voices of self-preservation, plead- 
ing, extenuating, offering excuses, crying out against 
this thing which honour demanded. Every argument, 
keen, cogent, and considered, which his brain at 


168 


TOMMY CARTERET 


leisure might have arrayed against such a marriage, 
crowded miraculously to the front. He did not love 
the girl — ^that went without saying. Such momentary 
stirs of feeling as he might have had in her presence 
were not love nor anything like it, but a very different 
thing. They were unsuited the one to the other. An 
ocean of differences of temperament, of breeding, of 
modes of thought, surged between them. — He could 
not do it. 

Henry Carnardon’s words came into his mind. It 
may be that he called them up in a sort of desperation 
to weigh against so much upon the other side. Henry 
Carnardon had urged marriage upon him. ‘‘You will 
at least be living a man’s life.” Who should be wise 
if not that grief-riddled man ? If he could not speak 
from knowledge of matrimony, at lea^t he knew the 
hell of solitude to its bitterest deeps. She was a hand- 
some girl, too. Few handsomer. She had eyes! 

Young Tommy strove for speech, but everything 
within him shrank and recoiled. He could not do it. 
His tongue would not make the words. 

And so, for a long time, the two sat or knelt there, 
on the turf, near to each other, Tommy Carteret silent 
because speech was withheld from him, the girl weep- 
ing, face hidden. Then, presently, when her sobs had 
ceased, she lifted her head, — ^her face was paler than 
its wont. Tommy noted — and, with her eyes averted, 
reached for the half-filled basket of blackberries. 

“I must be — going home,” she said. “I’m — sorry. 
I was a fool to cry. I’m scared, a little, about those 
men. It’s made me nervous.” She rose to her feet 
and pulled the crimson sunbonnet up over her hair. 
Before she turned away, she made as if she would 


WHERE THE BLACKBERRIES GREW 169 


speak again, but no words came. Then she went 
slowly down the tortuous bed of the gully, and the 
bushes hid her. 

Tommy let her go without a word. 


CHAPTER XIII 


Night on Half-Breed Hill 

On the evening of this same day the admirable 
Jared once more betrayed signs of an unquiet spirit 
and a mind ill at ease. He bore the air of one who 
would reopen a disagreeable subject but sadly lacked 
the necessary courage. But at last, as he took away 
the coffee things and opportunity narrowed toward 
its end, he found speech. 

“I reckon,” said he, affecting nonchalance, ‘‘’at 
you-all finds yo’self right lonely, a passin’ yo’ nights 
all alone hyuh.” 

“Fairly so,” said Tommy, lighting a cigarette. His 
tone did not encourage discussion, but the admirable 
Jared, once embarked, would not put back. 

“I was a-studyin’ about it,” he said, “an’ it appeared 
to me ’at you-all might feel mo’ comfortable like ef I 
was to sleep hyuh, en case you was to need me. I 
could make up a baid in that there little room over 
the hawse. Maybe you’d like fo’ me to do that.” 

“Certainly not,” said Tommy, a bit coldly. “Why 
should I need you ? Do I look as if I were afraid of 
the dark?” The admirable Jared grinned a sheepish 
grin, but he still seemed worried. 

“Maybe you might need me,” he insisted. Tommy 
looked up from his cigarette with a frown^ 

“What do you mean?” he demanded. 

“It’s them Borral an’ Canfield crowd,” said Jared, 

170 


NIGHT ON HALF-BREED HILL 171 


coming to his subject. ^‘I heered something this 
mawnin’ ’at I didn’t like. They’s ten or a dozen of 
’em, an’ they’s shorely peevish agin you. They might 
mek’ trouble.” 

‘‘They might make words,” said young Tommy, 
contemptuously, “but they’ll never make anything 
else. Don’t you worry. I’m safe enough. We’ll 
go on just as before.” He spoke again, as Jared was 
quitting the room, and his tone was kinder— a bit 
apologetic. 

“I don’t want you to think I’m not — grateful and — 
and all that sort of thing,” he said. “Thanks very 
much, you know, for wanting to stand by, but I think 
it won’t be necessary. People who bluster and threaten 
never do anything.” 

But after Jared had washed up the dishes and gone 
away with a gloomy shake of the head, young Tommy 
moved restlessly about the cabin in a mood of annoyed 
irritation. Why should every one suddenly insist that 
he was in personal danger? The probability that the 
man Borral would ever make good his silly threats 
seemed to him so faint and remote that he laughed at 
it with instant scorn. Further, such miserable cowards 
never had influence enough in any community to en- 
list other men in their personal quarrels. Of course, 
there was Canfield, but he rather fancied that Canfield 
was something of a coward too. Certainly these were 
no men to trouble one’s sleep. 

He dragged the long steamer chair out into the open, 
facing westward, where that nightly battle was being 
fought above the far hills — crimson, sanguinary, and 
where in the huge cup of the Great Bottom the pale- 
blue mists were writhing. He brought out a pipe and 
a book — the favourite Villon — and he sat himself down 


172 


TOMMY CARTERET 


there in the last rays of the sunset, staring, and puffing 
great clouds of smoke — miniature imitations of the 
mist-wreaths below — and stirring with an idle hand 
the leaves of the book on his knee. Villon went un- 
read that evening; young Tommy’s thoughts had 
nearer food. His face went hard and square and 
stern — softened suddenly — went hard again, and the 
pipe hung neglected from his teeth. 

‘T can’t do it!” said Tommy to the golden west. 

And an hour later, when the dusk crept round 
him, he said it again, fiercely, as to some one who 
stood accusing. 

‘T can’t do it! I tell you, I can’t do it!” 

He was fagged and weary, body and soul, when at 
last, in the dark, he rose to go indoors. He stood by 
his doorstep a moment, taking long breaths of the 
cool, night air. A little breeze bore across the hill-top 
from the eastward. It was sweet with summer smells, 
aromatic, life-giving. 

“They must have been cutting pine on the Dutch 
Creek road,” said Tommy absently. “No, that’s 
stronger than pine. It’s like burning pitch, or tar, or 
something. Anyhow, it’s good.” 

Inside the cabin, he lighted the red lamp and dropped 
down into his arm-chair before the writing-table. 

The silent, nightly tragedy of that watch under the 
red lamp! The deadly, unvarying pitifulness of it! 
Night after night, week after week, month after month. 
Always the same — still, solitary, hopeless. I see him 
come in with lagging steps from his hour of sunset and 
sweet dusk. I see him strike a match that sputters 
for a moment and then bursts into tiny flame. I see 
him light the swinging lamp and pull down over it its 
red shade. I see him drop into his chair, casting a 


NIGHT ON HAIT-BREED HILL 173 


listless eye over the litter of papers and books and 
pipes on the square table. I see him, perhaps, pull 
down a book from the orderly rows on the bookshelves 
near at hand, and read in it, turning here and there in 
hope of interest. But presently I see the book drop 
to the floor, and Tommy’s figure settle a bit in the arm- 
chair — weariness in every drooping line, lassitude 
beyond the power of words to picture. The chin 
sinks a bit on his breast, the lines in that strong, square 
face of his deepen, harden, the mouth draws tight, and 
he is quite still, staring ahead into something far be- 
yond the near wall that he faces — into something we 
may not see or picture, we who have not lived through 
those bitter, dreary months. It is thus I see him, and 
shiver a bit — ^grim, drooping in his chair, staring and 
nodding through untold hours. And utter, despairing 
gloom sits with him, an arm about his neck. 

On this night, of all nights, I know that gloom sat 
with him, and an exceedingly great weariness hung 
upon all his drooping body, for that struggle out in 
the dusk had tired more than words can tell. Not 
even Villon could tempt him to reading; not even the 
little faithful journal could make him take up his pen. 
It seemed to him, glooming there in his loneliness, that, 
across the path which had been given him to walk, a 
mountain rose, sheer and high and precipitous, barring 
the way — a mountain which, perhaps, a better man 
might climb, or a worse circumvent. For himself he 
saw no passage. 

What was it Henry Carnardon had said? 

have sat at this table for hours . . . with a 

pistol before my hands, stating the question and ar- 
guing each side of it with all the skill I possess, hoping 
against hope that one day I might be able to argue 


174 


TOMMY CARTERET 


down my scruple and end it all . . Tommy 

pulled open a drawer of the writing-table, and from it 
took the loaded pistol which he kept there — the “rc- 
volover” which Jared had begged him to carry. He 
laid the weapon upon the litter of papers before his 
hands and nodded to it gravely. 

'T do not think,’’ he said, ‘That I have Carnardon’s 
scruples in the matter of suicide. It seems to me that 
there are cases in which nothing else will avail, and 
it seems to me that my case is one of these. I am not 
a coward, I fancy ” He spoke in a tone of half- 

questioning deprecation, as if he were quite open to 
argument or to denial, “but, in so far as I am able to 
judge, my life is a menace and a harm to several peo- 
ple. God knows it is a weariness to myself. In so 
far as I am able to judge, my life were better out of 
the way.” He raised the pistol and snapped open 
the breech, whirling the loaded cylinder under his 
thumb. There was a faint odour of oil and of corro- 
ding brass from the greased cartridges. He snapped 
the breech shut again, and looked with a certain cool, 
impersonal curiosity into the black bore where death 
lay, and a quick solving of all puzzles, a quick severing 
of the knot which, it seemed, was so far beyond his 
power to undo. 

“I have no moral scruple,” he said again, slowly. 
“Certainly I am not afraid, and yet — one shrinks. 
A natural distaste for death, very likely. They say 
that suicide is impossible save through temporary in- 
sanity. I wonder. No, that’s a lie. There was von 
Bienach.” He spoke of a Prussian friend of his who 
had unwittingly brought disgrace upon himself and 
through himself upon his regiment. His colonel and 
major had sent him, by messenger, a pistol, and von 


NIGHT ON HALF-BREED HILL 175 


Bienach had, obediently and quite calmly, shot himself, 
in his rooms. 

“One shrinks,’’ said young Tommy, nodding at the 
pistol which he had again laid upon the litter of papers 
before him. “ I wonder why ? Perhaps, after all, it is 
fear — not fear of dying, but fear of what’s beyond. I 
wonder. Now here am I,” he said, setting himself, 
as it were, to argument. “Here am I, ready to quit 
an intolerable life for my own good and for the good of 
several others. I claim a right to go. I am eager to 
go, and yet — something holds my hand. What? Is 
there something beyond that warns, or does living 
flesh dread the cold? — Gad, that’s like Hamlet! — Oh, 
to the devil with quibblings!” he cried in a little burst 
of anger. Then he laughed. 

“Come, we’ll toss for it!” said Tommy, grimly hu- 
morous. “Heads I go. Tails I stay.” He felt in 
his pockets and brought out a half-dollar. “Three 
tosses,” said he, “and heads I go!” 

The coin whirled and fell, noiseless, on the papers. 

“Heads!” said young Tommy, laughing. 

The coin spun again, and rolled a little way, and 
fell, balancing to the last. Tails. 

“Fate’s a sporting lady!” said the man. “She 
likes a long race. Once again, now!” 

The silver coin flashed in the lamp-light and fell, 
striking against the pistol, which lay there, with a 
sharp ring, and falling half under it. I think Tommy’s 
hand shook, the least bit, as he lifted the weapon away. 
Tails! 

“You would seem to have the better of it, Madame,” 
said Tommy Carteret. But, at that, another little 
gust of anger shook him. 

‘‘There’s no one here to see if I play fair or foul!” 


176 


TOMMY CAKTERET 


he cried. ‘‘I’ll toss again.” The coin flashed and 
fell. Once, twice, three times. Tails all! Tommy 
Carteret cursed aloud in high, shrill tones. The game 
had, at last, I fancy, reached his deadened nerves. 

After this, he fell once more into his brooding, 
staring silence, sunken a bit in the arm-chair, fingers 
playing and picking at the loaded pistol which had 
been cheated of its prey, lips moving from time to 
time in I know not what bitter, weary words. He 
sat there for hours and did not know that time passed. 

It was, I think, toward one or two of the morning 
when there came a low rapping at the door. Tommy, 
sunk in gloom and bitterness, heard nothing. The 
rapping came again, low, patient, insistent. Tommy, 
chin on breast, brooded on. The rapping came again, 
rose to sharpness, would not be denied. Tommy, 
still in his chair, lifted an alert head, and his eyes 
turned from side to side. 

Who visited Half-Breed Hill at this dark hour? 
Jared, maybe, returned against orders to protect his 
master. Maybe — ^Tommy took up the loaded pistol 
and slipped it into the side pocket of his jacket — the 
right-hand pocket. Then he rose and went to the 
door. He stood there a moment, listening. There 
was no sound from outside. Tommy pulled the door 
open with his left hand, and his eyes narrowed to peer 
into the gloom without. 

he said in a whisper. “You!” The girl 
brushed quickly past him into the room and closed 
the door behind her, standing against it. She was 
breathing hard, and her eyes were fixed upon those of 
young Tommy, who stood near, looking at her under 
his brows. For a moment it seemed as if she could 
not speak — as if she were frightened into silence by 



“ ‘ They’re coming ! ’ she cried in her breathless, panting 

voice, halting between the words ” 








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NIGHT ON HALF-BREED HILL 177 


those stern, fixed eyes. Then suddenly she started 
forward, coming close to him, putting out her hands 
against his breast, pushing him toward the inner room. 

“They^re — coming!” she cried in her breathless, 
panting voice, halting between the words. “You must 
go, quick! They’re coming — ^they may be hyuh — 
any minute.” 

“They ?” asked young Tommy. “Coming? Who’s 
coming? Here, sit down; you’re fagged out. You’ve 
been running. By Jove, you’re all torn and wetl 
Sit down and rest. There’s no hurry.” He dragged 
out a chair and tried to press the girl into it, for she 
was indeed fagged out. She breathed in great, dry 
gasps, as if she had run hard for a long distance. The 
skirt of the gown she wore was torn and wet and stained, 
as if it had been dragged through brambles, and there 
was a long, red scratch across one of her cheeks. 
“Please sit down and rest a bit,” said Tommy again, 
but the girl caught at his arm hysterically, always 
pressing him toward the inner room. 

“ Won’t you go ! ” she cried. “ I tell you they’re com- 
ing hyuh — after you — Joe Borral and — my father and 
— a lot of — others. They’ve got guns, and they’ve 
been — heating — tar. They’re going to — tar and feather 
you. Oh, go, quick! Why won’t you go?” 

“Tar and Aah!” said young Tommy slowly, 

and his mind flashed back for an instant to that keen, 
pungent, aromatic scent he had noticed in the wind at 
dusk. “Tar and feather me!” he said again. “Oh, 
I think not!” 

The girl stood shaking before him, and she beat her 
two hands against her sides in desperate impotence. 

“Oh, go!” she wailed. “Don’t you hear what I 
say? Do you want them to — find you hyuh? They 


178 


TOMMY CARTERET 


was ready to start when I came away. Dad, he^d ben 
watching me all evenin\ I — couldn’t get away be- 
fore. He — went out for a minute to the others, and 
I — I ran. Please! please!” She began to sob, stand- 
ing there in the lamplight, great, dry, gasping sobs of 
fright and nervousness and a fatigue which was on 
the verge of collapse. 

“By Jove!” said young Tommy, “you’re a brick! 
I — wish you hadn’t come. I don’t like your being 
mixed up in this nasty affair, but you’re a brick. I 
think you’re the pluckiest woman I ever knew. No, 
I won’t go; I’ll stop where I am, but I won’t be tarred 
and feathered, either — not alive, that is — so don’t 
you worry. 

“I shall be all right. You’ve warned me, and I shall 
be ready for them. Now, go, please! You can’t do 
anything more. You’ve done your part like a brick. 
Go out this way, through the other room and the 
kitchen. I’ve a few preparations to make, and then 

we’ll see how fast those chaps ’ll tar and ” He 

halted suddenly to listen, and the girl’s sobbing also 
broke abruptly into silence. There were sounds of 
footsteps outside the cabin. 

“They’ve lost no time!” said young Tommy, with 
a grim little laugh. “Ah, well! they can’t surprise me, 
anyhow. Now off with you, quickly! When you’re 
outside, bolt for home.” He pushed the girl, who was 
sobbing again under her breath and clinging to his 
arms, into the inner room, and pulled the hangings 
together after her. Outside, something rattled like 
a gun-butt dropped to the ground, and a man’s voice 
spoke, low and muffled. Tommy set the long steamer 
chair across the room, near the outer door. It might 
prevent an organised rush. Then he waited. 


NIGHT ON HALF-BREED HILL 179 


There came a knocking at the door. Tommy stepped 
back against the opposite wall. His right hand hung 
at his side, a little behind him, so that what it held was 
in shadow. 

“Come in!” he called. 

The door opened slowly. What came in first was 
the barrel of a shot-gun. It was followed by old Dave 
Canfield, and he was followed by others, six armed 
men, dark, grim, still men, who stood grouped in the 
open doorway, looking silently at the lad across the 
lamp-lighted room. 

“Good evening!” said young Tommy. “A bit 
late for a call, what?” That second Tommy, who 
stood beside, critical, finger to pulse, was mildly amused 
to discover that in the lad, at this moment, there was 
no fear; rather an odd sense of elation, a quick appre- 
ciation of the humorous, a pleasurable excitement like 
the beginnings of intoxication. It would seem that 
Tommy Carteret was of the stuff of which fighters are 
made. 

“Always bring the artillery when you call?” he in- 
quired. “Must be in the way. Chap can^t carry a 
gun and take off his hat at the same time — some chaps.” 

Old Dave Canfield dropped the butt of his gun to 
the floor and leaned forward upon the muzzle. 

“ We-all didn’ come hyuh fo’ to mek’ a visit,” he said. 

“Oh!” said young Tommy, “I didn't know.” 

“We-all come,” said the other man, “to mvite you 
to a little party of ourn.” The men behind him 
stirred, and one of them smothered a laugh. 

“Would to-morrow do?” inquired young Tommy 
pleasantly. “I was thinking of going to bed.” 

“The party is to-night,” said old Dave Canfield. 
“We-all has ben a-cookin' up a nice mess of tar an* 


180 


TOMMY CARTERET 


feathers, what we thought you-all might enjoy. Like- 
wise they’s a sh'ot ride afterwa’ds.’^ 

“And,” said young Tommy, shifting to the other 
foot, “what if I decline?” 

“You’ll go jes’ the same,” said old Dave. “On’y 
you’ll go feet fust. What did you-all reckon we was 
doin’ with these hyuh guns?” 

“I didn’t know,” said young Tommy. “I thought, 
maybe, you were afraid of the dark. Some people 
are. As a matter of fact,” he said, pretending to hide 
a yawn, “my man Jared, who is just the other side of 
those curtains behind me, has had you covered. Can- 
field, ever since you came in. And you with the yellow 
beard, whatever your name is, I’ve you covered with 
this.” He turned a bit, so that the lamplight flashed 
upon the pistol which he held in his right hand. 

Another stir ran through the little group of men in 
the doorway, and old Dave Canfield half raised his 
shot-gun. 

“If I were you,” said Carteret, “I shouldn’t run 
unnecessary risks. Jared is quick-tempered, and you 
are a family man.” He put out a foot and hooked a 
near-by chair, dragging it over to him. Then, always 
keeping an alert eye upon the faces before him, he sat 
down and tilted the chair back against the wall, after 
the fashion locally popular at Winston’s. 

“This is rude,” he admitted, “but so are you, and 
I love to be comfortable. Now, in the matter of that 
tar and feathers. What’s it for?” 

“I reckon you know, damn well, what it’s fori” 
said old Dave Canfield, blackly. “I reckon you ain’t 
surprised none. Maybe you think ’at because you’ve 
got city clo’es, an’ think you’re a heap better’n we-uns 
hyuh, you can come hyuh an’ have anythin’ you hap- 


NIGHT ON HALF-BREED HILL 181 


pens to lay yo’ eyes on, an’ want. Maybe you-all 
think it don’ make no difference to we-uns if you get 
yo’ ban’s on we-uns’s daughters an’ do what you like 
to with ’em. •Maybe you thinks that’s what we-all 
have gals fo’? Well, it ain’t, an’, by Gawd, we-all 
is aimin’ ’at you should fin’ out it ain’t. I reckon 
’at by mawnin’ you-all will know mo’ sense ’an you 
does now.” 

Tommy Carteret, tilted back in his chair, watchful, 
but smiling, shook his head. 

‘‘I reckon not,” said he. Then he permitted him- 
self to make a little gallery-play. The pistol-barrel, 
directed by his steady right hand, never wavered from 
the breast of the big, blond-bearded man who stood 
beside Dave Canfield, but, with his left hand, he felt 
in a waistcoat pocket, brought out a cigarette-case, 
chose a cigarette — ^brought out, in turn, a match-box 
and lighted the cigarette. 

‘T reckon not,” said Tommy, blowing smoke artis- 
tically through his nose. It was a silly bit of bravado, 
I grant you, but I think it told on these grim men in 
the doorway. I think even I take a sneaking, half- 
ashamed delight in the fact that Tommy could do it. 
He had other qualities that I love better, but this gay 
and debonair spirit of his in the face of overwhelm- 
ing danger pleases me well. Inside, he may have 
been afraid. I do not know, but I love a laugh at peril, 
and I am glad Tommy laughed. 

''As for your hints at my conduct,” he went on pres- 
ently, "I need scarcely say that they are lies. I think 
you know it, but perhaps these other — ^gentlemen do 
not.” His eyes ran for an instant over the little group 
of faces. "I dare say,” he said, "that you have been 
told a great lot of nonsense about me — otherwise, you 


182 


TOMMY CAKTERET 


wouldn’t be here. The facts are these. I found a 
young lady half-unconscious, over in the oak-flat, 
yonder. She had fallen while trying to get over a 
fence, and had broken her collar-bone. * I helped her 
to get home. When we arrived there, her father grate- 
fully blackguarded me in his best manner, and sub- 
sequently told lies about me to every one who would 
listen. That’s all there was of it.” 

One or two of the men in the doorway laughed de- 
risively, and some one from the rear called out: 

“Oh, shut him up an’ bring him along! Is we-uns 
a-goin’ to spen’ the night hyuh?” Old Dave Can- 
fleld started to raise his gun, but Tommy’s pistol 
promptly shifted to his breast and the gun butt dropped 
once more. 

“ Jared and I mean to do our little best,” said Tommy 
Carteret. 

“It’s a damn bluff!” said the voice from the dark- 
ness. “They ain’t no Jared thah.” And the group 
stirred a bit, shuffling its feet, and one or two of the 
gun-barrels pointed toward where Tommy sat, tilted 
back in his chair. 

Tommy’s feet came to the floor on either side of the 
chair, and he rose, kicking the chair from him. His 
back was against the wall, and the pistol-barrel never 
moved from its steady aim. 

“As you like,” said he. “I have five bullets. Can- 
field goes first; then you with the yellow beard, I think. 
As you like — ^Well ? ” He laughed again and spat the 
cigarette from his lips to the floor. Old Dave Can- 
field drew back a step, among his fellows, and there 
came a scufiling sound of preparation, a clicking as 
of gun-locks, a low word or two of parley. Then, 
quite isuddenly, the portieres in the doorway, at 


NIGHT ON HALF-BREED HILL 183 


Tommy’s left, shook and opened, and one of the men 
across the room said: 

‘‘My Gawd!” in a high, amazed voice. 

“Oh, why didn’t you go!” cried Tommy, angrily. 
“ I told you to go! ” But the girl ran to him, and stood 
before him, clinging to his shoulders, and looking back 
across the room where stood her father and his friends. 

“You’ll never get him alive!” she said, “and you’ll 
have to kill me, too, so you might as well begin, you — 
you — cowards!” Tommy fought her with his free 
left hand, trying to force her away out of danger, but 
the girl clung to him with all her strength, and she was 
very strong, keeping her body between him and the 
men in the doorway. 

“Go away!” cried young Tommy. “For God’s 
sake, go! This is no place for you! WonH you go?” 
And then, at something he saw, he made a last desperate 
effort and threw her from him, so that she fell upon 
her hands and knees on the floor, at some little distance. 

“Keep down!” he cried sharply. “Lie down on 
the floor!” 

A man had forced his way through the little group 
opposite — a man who shrieked horrible, blasphemous 
curses. It was Joe Borral, white-faced, eyes blazing. 
He held his shot-gun ready in his hands, and as he 
reached the front rank of the group of men he raised 
it, cursing aloud, and fired. The explosion roared 
and crashed in the small room, and filled all the air 
with that bitter, acrid powder-smoke w^hich blinds the 
eyes and clutches at the throat intolerably. But 
Tommy had seen what was coming, and he was quicker 
than the other man. The charge of buckshot ripped 
harmlessly through the pine ceiling, and when the 
others had to some degree fought the smoke from 


184 


TOMMY CARTERET 


eyes and mouths, they saw that Tommy Carteret 
stood in the middle of the room, feet apart, hands 
clutched about the throat of something which looked 
like a dummy — a suit of clothes stuffed out with bits of 
rag. They saw him shake this thing, forward and 
back, side to side, until its head rolled ludicrously upon 
its shoulders, and its boots flapped and clattered upon 
the boards of the floor. 

At last, when his strength was spent, he flung the 
thing, with a final effort, at their feet, where it rolled, 
whimpering, and stepped back to his place against the 
wall. And the girl crept again toward him, slipping 
into his hand the pistol which he had dropped, and 
rose, clinging to his breast — hiding her face there, and 
sobbing. 

Tommy slid a spent left arm about her shoulders, 
and over her head his fierce eyes sought through the 
floating smoke for Dave Canfield’s face. 

“Your daughter,” he said, between breaths of ex- 
haustion, “came here to-night to warn me that you — 
blackguards were — coming for me. I thought she 
had — gone home again. I — ^begged her to go.” 

“I reckon,” said old Dave Canfield, thickly, “’at it 
ain’t the first time she’s ben hyuh. I reckon she knows 
the way.” 

“You’re a damned liar!” said Tommy Carteret, 
“and if you weren’t her father I’d shoot you here and 
now for what you’ve said. As a matter of fact, how- 
ever, she has a perfect right to be here. She has 
promised to marry me at as early a date as she can 
arrange for.” 

The girl started suddenly in his arm, with a little, 
low cry, and Dave Canfield’s face gaped through the 
smoke-wreaths, mouth open. 


NIGHT ON HALF-BREED HILL 185 


“Marry!” he said in a whisper, and the big man 
with the yellow beard burst out into a great roar of 
laughter. 

“Why the — ^why the — why didn’t ye say so?” he 
demanded. “Think we-all hasn’t got nothin’ better 
to do ’an hettin’ up tar an’ a-spoilin’ feather beds for a 
man what’s a-goin’ to be married ? Ain’t such a man 
got trouble enough a-comin’ to him ’ithout we-uns addin’ 
unto it! Why didn’t ye let on to Dave ’at ye wanted fo’ 
to marry the gal?” 

“I hadn’t a chance,” said Tommy. “He always 
side-stepped when I came near.” 

The big man with the yellow beard turned about to 
his fellows. He was still laughing. 

“I reckon this hyuh sure spiles we-all ’s game,” he 
said. “I reckon we-all hasn’t got nothin’ mo’ to do 
’an to git out.” There was mingled laughter and pro- 
test from the other men, an angry word or two from 
some one who did not relish being cheated out of his 
night’s entertainment, but the yellow-bearded giant 
pushed and hustled them, one by one, out of the door- 
way. Old Dave Canfield was the last to go — old Dave, 
staring and speechless still, and dragging by the arm 
a thing which writhed and wept and babbled stam- 
mering, impotent curses. Then the door slammed, 
and Tommy Carteret was left alone in the cabin on 
Half-Breed Hill with his newly acquired fiancee. 

The girl moved a few, uncertain steps away from 
him, and stood beside the writing-table, fingering the 
papers and pens which lay there. Her head was bent 
and turned a little away, but the neck and ear, which 
Tommy could see, burned crimson. 

“Well?” said he presently, standing by his wall, 
and the girl’s head rose to his word. Tommy saw her 


186 


TOMMY CARTERET 


hand shake on the littered papers, but her eyes were 
dark and steady. 

‘T reckon you’ll — ^be going now,” she said. ‘‘You 
can — ^get away early in the morning.” 

“Going?” said he. “Going where? What do 
you mean?” The girl took a faltering step toward 
him, one hand out before her as if she were blind. 
Her eyes never left his face. 

“You didn’t mean ” she said in a whisper, 

“You weren’t really — telling the — truth? You don’t 

wan ” Tommy smiled into her eyes, and the girl 

dropped forward upon his breast with a great sob, and 
lay there shaking from head to foot. 

He said to himself that he was glad. He said it a 
bit fiercely, a bit defiantly, staring hollow-eyed over 
the girl’s head into the red glow of the lamp. He said 
that Fate had managed the whole thing for him, that 
Fate which had played against him when he tossed 
for life or death; and that he had had nothing to do 
with the choice. Anyhow, the choice was made; and 
he was glad. After all, why not ? Henry Carnardon 
was right. Here was, at any rate, a man’s life to live. 
What’s a man’s life with no woman in it? — ^Exile? 
Aye, but why not a sweetened exile ? Not an unpleas- 
ant burden, this, clinging and sobbing on one’s breast. 
A warm, breathing burden, egad, to cheer one’s 
solitude, to make one forget what must be forgotten! 
He laughed as he bent the girl’s head back and bent 
over it to kiss her, and he watched for and welcomed 
the inward stir^ the quickened blood, that her mouth’s 
warm clinging wakened in him. Here’s a Tommy I 
would hide from you if I might, if I had not set out 
to tell plain truth, to conceal nothing. Aye, here’s a 
Tommy I could weep for, a desperate, maddened 


NIGHT ON HALF-BREED HILL 1^7 


Tommy, spurring himself on to the commonest, cheap- 
est passion, all to the end that he might not think — 
ail to blind his eyes and deafen his ears against those 
terrors which he knew waited only for solitude to en- 
gulf him. It is a picture I see often — against my will, 
for I do not love it — poor Tommy holding and kissing 
his gipsyish hill girl there in the lamplight, and ever, 
between kisses, looking up over her head with shrink- 
ing, dreading eyes at the shadows which wait outside 
the lamp^s red glow — shadows which lurk and nod, 
biding their time, biding their time. 

He sent the girl home as quickly as possible, with 
promises for the morning. 

“We must give those chaps no more chance to talk 
than we can help,” he said. “They’ll be watching to 
see if you stay here.” And he would have crossed 
the bottom with her to see her safe in her cabin, but 
that she would not have — ^wept, stormed, refused to 
move a step. She held that she herself was safe, but 
that Tommy’s life walked, that night, upon a razor’s 
edge, and at the last he let her go. 

And so here the curtain should go down on this night’s 
work. The others are off the stage. Tommy remains 
alone. There is but one thing left to do. I see him 
lock and bolt the doors, make lights in the sleeping- 
room, stand a moment beside the writing-table with 
his hand uplifted to the red lamp, and then — ^his eyes 
fall upon that which sits and smiles within the Temple 
gate. 

“Sib! Sib!” says young Tommy with an exceed- 
ingly bitter cry, and sobs take hold upon him by the 
throat— a man’s sobs, great and dry and very terrible, 
and shake him from head to foot. 

An hour later, when something like control has once 


188 


TOMMY CARTERET 


more come to him, I see the last and bitterest thing of 
that long night. I see young Tommy take down from 
the wall the Temple gate and, drawing out of it the 
photograph which had been there, tear the picture 
across twice and drop the pieces upon the floor. Then 
I see him turn out the red lamp and go to his bed, sway- 
ing a little in his walk — like a drunken man. 


CHAPTER XIV 


The Last Days of Carter, of Half-Breed Hill 

The wedding day was set for two weeks ahead. 
There seemed to be no reason or excuse for making a 
long engagement of it, no great preparations to go 
through with. Marriage is a simple matter in the hill 
country. 

Over these two weeks I shall hurry with few words, 
partly because I have no heart for dwelling upon that 
time, and partly because there is little to record — ^little, 
that is, which would forward my tale; much if I should 
choose to take you into young Tommy^s mind and soul. 
If I have before said that there dwelt two Tommies upon 
Half-Breed Hill, I might say it again, now at this point, 
with a double force. There were indeed two Tommies; 
one who sat each day with Mariana Canfield, laughed 
with her, held her, kissed her, talked with her about the 
life they two were to live together, painstakingly trained 
the baser part of himself to thrill at her touch, at her 
eager kisses, painstakingly buried from sight and 
thought the better part which cried out against this pre- 
posterous mis-mating, which shivered at the thousand 
little vulgarities the girl could not hide. The other 
Tommy was a white-faced, hollow-eyed ghost which 
raved through the wood-road at night, when Egypt was 
asleep, shouted curses to the velvet stars above, begged 
God to send his merciful thunders and slay, tossed sleep- 
189 


190 


TOMMY CARTERET 


less, aye sobbing, in the fateful bed where little Mrs. 
Satterlee had died. 

No, it will not bear dwelling upon, this stretch of time. 
Two things only I must record because they have a cer- 
tain importance. I take them in their order. 

Tommy had a caller one morning. It was two days 
after that night upon which tar had been heated and 
feathers prepared. Tommy was writing letters to cer- 
tain banker people and trust companies — ^business let- 
ters. He had been over, earlier in the morning, across 
the bottom to interview old Dave Canfield as one is 
expected to interview the father of one’s bride-to-be. 
Dave had been silent and, it would almost seem, awed. 
The old furtive hatred had shone unmistakably in his 
black eyes — ^he was not one to change his attitude, but 
he said nothing uncivil, made no outward show of hos- 
tility. If he felt surprise at the very considerable sum of 
money Tommy proposed to settle upon his wife, it was 
well concealed. He nodded consent to every sugges- 
tion, and he nodded when Tommy went away — ^nodded 
without offering his hand. He had, by the way, not 
even asked his visitor to be seated during the interview. 

Tommy’s caller was Mariana’s elder sister. Rose 
Barrows, the woman he had met on the occasion of his 
first call at the Canfields’, after Mariana’s accident. He 
was, as I have said, writing busily, and did not see the 
woman until she spoke through the open doorway. 

“Oh, good morning!” said young Tommy. “I beg 
your pardon for not seeing you. I was writing. Won’t 
you come in?” 

“No, suh, thank you!” said the w’oman. “I’ll just 
set down hyuh on the do ’step in the shade. I was a-goin’ 
home from the Crimmins’s,” she explained, “by the 
sho’t cut acrost the bottom, an’ I reckoned I’d set a 


THE LAST DAY 


91 


minute ef you was hyuh.” T ‘^ity 

in her face and a certain diffident emoai^.:. l^Tin her 
manner which made Tommy narrow his eyes curiously 
as he sat watching. He did not believe that the woman 
had merely happened in as she said, and he wondered 
idly what she wished to say to him. He had seen her 
not more than half a dozen times, for, like the other mem- 
bers of the family, she had kept well out of his way when 
he had been calling upon Mariana, but he had always 
liked a certain kindly, unassuming frankness which she 
bore. He had, once or twice, taken enough interest in 
her to say to himself that she was doubtless a better 
woman with more womanly qualities than Mariana 
could ever by any possibility possess. 

She looked up at him from her seat on the doorstep, 
and her square, kindly face was still grave and, it seemed 
to him oddly, almost compassionate, as if she under- 
stood. 

“It’s on’y two weeks off, ain’t it?” she said. 

“Less than that,” said young Tommy. “Twelve 
days, I believe.” The woman nodded, turning her face 
away. Then once or twice again she opened her mouth 
to speak, but halted before the words came, as if she 
lacked courage or could not frame what she wished to 
say, until at last she turned to him with a little impatient 
gesture. 

“I’m sorry!” she said simply. ‘T wish’t it didn’ 
have to be. I’m sorry.” 

Oddly enough, young Tommy felt no impulse toward 
expressing conventional astonishment or denial or any- 
thing of that sort. He felt at once that this woman 
knew, and it did not seem strange that she should 
speak out. 

“You’re wrong, you know,” said he. “It is for the 


192 


CARTERET 


very I of that.” But the woman 

shook her iicciu, looking at him with that queer half- 
compassion. 

‘"You don’ believe that,” said she. ‘‘An’ anyhow, I 
know better. Look hyuh!” She leaned toward him 
anxiously. “Couldn’ you get out of it, even now? 
Couldn’ you go away, somewheres ? Never mind 
— us. Never mind Marianner. She^d get over it. 
Couldn’ you do that?” 

Tommy frowned down at the woman perplexedly. 
She went further than he had expected, and he did not 
quite make her out. 

“Of course not!” he said sharply. “That is out of 
the question. But why f Why do you want me to go 
away ? ” 

“Because you won’ be happy hyuh, married,” said 
she. 

“Are you afraid,” demanded young Tommy, “that I 
sha’n’t make your sister happy ? Is that what you are 
afraid of?” 

“I ain’t a-thinkin** about her,” said the woman. 
“She’ll be happy enough, I reckon. She’ll have mo’ 
money ’an she’s ever had, an’ clo’es an’ things. I ain’t 
a-thinkin’ about her; I’m a-thinkin’ about you.” Her 
face flushed a little, and her two coarse, reddened hands 
worked together nervously, wrapping themselves in the 
folds of her apron and straining against each other 
upon her knees. “ It’s a-goin’ to be hell for you, ain’t 
it?” she said. 

Tommy stared at her curiously. He could not in the 
least make her out. He could not understand why she 
should say this sort of thing to him unless she had some 
ulterior motive. 

“On the contrary,” he said stiffly, “I expect to be 


THE LAST DAYS OF CARTER 193 


very happy indeed.” He felt that this was a very poor 
and coarse and unfair weapon to use, but he could not 
rid himself of the suspicion that the woman had come 
to him for some purpose other than kindliness — perhaps 
to find out something, perhaps to get him away for 
reasons of her own. “I don’t understand,” he said, 
shaking his head. 

The woman breathed a little sigh and started to rise. 

“It seems it ain’t no use,” she said. “You — you 

understan’ well enough, but No, it ain’t no use, 

I reckon.” But once again the odd look of distressed 
sympathy came strongly into her face, and she turned 
to him with a gesture of appeal. 

“Won’ you believe me ?” she cried. “Cain’t I make 
you believe ’at I’m honest about it ? I’m sorry fo’ you ; 
honest I am. You ain’t a-goin’ to be happy. It’s a-goin’ 
to be hell fo’ you, an’ you know it. I tell you, she ain’t 
fitten to marry you, Marianner ain’t! I don’ care ef 
she is my sister. Her an’ you-all ain’t the same kin’. 
People ought fo’ to marry their own kin’. Animals an’ 
birds an’ all them does, an’ I reckon humans is so too. 
You don’ know Marianner. You think she’s pretty 
an’ young an’ ’at you can stan’ it because of that, but 
she ain’t a-goin’ to be pretty always. She ain’t so likely 
now as she was a year ago. . . . How ol’ d’you 

reckon I be ?” She looked up at him with her square, 
coarsely handsome face quivering with such flushed 
earnestness that young Tommy could no longer mis- 
trust her. There was only truth and sincerity there, 
and he instinctively felt it. 

“Oh, I — I’m sure I don’t know!” he said. “I’m no 
judge, you know. I ” The woman cut in swiftly. 

“You’d say I was thirty-five, wouldn’ you?” she 
demanded. “Well, I ain’t. I’m pn’y twenty-three. 


194 


TOMMY CARTERET 


We're all that a-way liyuh. Marianner is eighteen. 
When she’s twenty she’ll look like me. She’ll be fat, 
too — ^fatter’n me. When she’s thirty, she’ll be an ol’ 
woman.” 

Tommy shook his head with a little weary gesture. 

‘‘I’m afraid that doesn’t make any difference,” said 
he. “One doesn’t expect a girl to remain beautiful 
forever. Are you suggesting that I should run away 
because Mariana will one day be old ?” 

“ They’s mo’ ’an that ! ” she swept on eagerly. “ They’s 
wo’se things ’an that. I tell you you don’ know her. 
She’s — mean, Marianner is. I’ve knew her all her life, 
an’ I ought to know. She’s mean. She tells lies, 

an’ Why shouldn’ she? Look what she come 

from ? You’ve seen my paw! A gal cain’t have a paw 
like that an’ take nothin’ from him. She’s like paw 
when she’s sot her min’ about anythin’. An’ they’s 
other things too. W’en she’s madded she’ll do anythin*. 
She throwed a lamp at paw once’t, a lighted lamp, jes’ 
because she was madded. Oh, I wish’t you’d go away!” 

Tommy leaned forward in his chair, frowning down 
perplexedly at Rose Barrow’s flushed face. 

“I don’t understand,” he said again. “ Why should 
you come to me and tell me all these things ? Granted 
they’re true, why should you tell me ? Don’t you care 
for your sister ? Don’t you want her to marry me ? It 
seems so — such a very odd thing for a sister to do I ” 

The woman rose, shaking her head. “ No,” said she. 
“I reckon you don’ understan’. I reckon you wouldn’. 
I jes’ thought ’at it was a pity fo’ it to happen ’at you 
should marry her, not knowin’ mo’ about her ’an you 
does. It seems to me ’at it’s a-goin’ to be hell all aroun’. 
Marianner ought to ’a’ married Joe Borral. He’s her 
kin’. Ef she was mean an’ ornery Joe’d ’a’ beated her. 


THE LAST DAYS OF CAETER 195 


You wouldn’. I reckon I thought you was bein’ fo’ced 
into it somehow, one thing an’ another. I know a man 
gets lonesome when he’s alone an’ — an’ in trouble. I 
know ’at he’ll do a’mos’ anythin’ to have it differen’. 
An’ what they-all ben a-sayin’ — all them lies, an’ all — I 

thought Well, it don’ matter nohow. I reckon 

it ain’t none o’ my business.” She took up her basket 
and moved away. “I was sorry fo’ you, that was all,” 
she said. 

Tommy started up to call her back, but words would 
not come to him. There was no drawing back now. 
The thing had gone too far. Twenty-three! Yes, she 
looked thirty-five, or more. 

“Marianner is eighteen. W’en she’s twenty she’ll 
look like me.” 

No more letter-writing for Tommy that day. 

I said that there were two things which I must record. 
The other thing came a few days after this. Jared the 
admirable returned one day at mid-morning from the 
village, where he had gone on certain matters of busi- 
ness. He had ridden the mare instead of driving her 
to the cart, and sat lounging easily in the saddle in the 
shade before the cabin door the while he made his 
report to his master. Jared was overlong of speech 
and full of detail. I think I have said that he was a 
gossip. On this morning he had various unimportant 
happenings to relate, but young Tommy, immersed in a 
letter from his banking people, did not trouble to listen 
until a significant word caught his ear. 

“What’s that?” he demanded, looking up. ‘‘Say 
that again.” 

“Nothin’ much,” averred the admirable Jared. “I 
jest said ’at it appeared we was up agin’ thet there forren 
compeetition the Effingham paper is a-talkin’ so much 


196 


TOMMY CARTERET 


about. I see two dago men a-walkin* alo*ng the village 
road this mawnin’. Black as niggers they was, 'ith red 
sashes on like a woman, an’ a-jabberin’ their foolish talk 
hke damned parrots. I reckon they was lookin’ for 
farm- work — an’ after harvest, too!” 

Young Tommy’s face set hard and white. ** Get off 
the mare!” he said. “Look sharp! Have you ridden 
her hard ?” Jared slid to the ground, staring. 

“No, sir,” said he. “I walked her a’most all the 

way home. She’s fresh as paint. Why, what the 

Hell!” Young Tommy was off at a canter with never 
another word, and the admirable Jared stared after him 
open-mouthed. 

“ Now what the devil does he want ’ith a dago man ? ” 
demanded Jared indignantly. “Ain’t I good enough 
for him?” 

Tommy, out on the main road, pressed hard, and the 
mare laid back her ears and shook an angry head. She 
had been looking forward to a day of oats and contem- 
plation. 

“It may be nothing!” said the man between his teeth; 
“but it may be — my God! Get on, you beast; get on! 
Did I ask Jared whether they were going toward the 
village or from it? No, I didn’t. Ass!” He bent 
forward over the mare’s neck, and that discontented 
animal seemed to realise that fear was abroad, for she 
settled to her work, up-hill and down, never slackening, 
and I rather think she made a record for that stretch of 
five miles. 

In the box-bordered drive which turned in from the 
highroad Tommy came upon the man Peters. Peters 
was walking, and he had several parcels in his arms. 
There was dust upon his gaiters, so that it would seem 
he had walked from the village. He touched his cap 


THE LAST DAYS OF CARTER 197 


respectfully to Tommy and went to the mare’s head 
when Tommy prepared to dismount. 

“Have you been away from the house long?” asked 
Tommy. 

“A matter of two hours, sir,” said the servant. “ Lord 
Henry was just finishing breakfast when I left, sir.” 
He stared, with as much curiosity as a well-bred servant 
may display, at Carteret’s set face and at his quick, 
abrupt speech. 

“My man Jared saw two Italians in the village road 
this morning,” said Tommy, and the man’s face went 
suddenly white, and his hand dropped from the mare’s 
bridle. 

“My God, sir!” he cried under his breath, and began 
all at once to tremble very violently, like a man seized by 
ague. 

“Oh, come, come!” said young Tommy, and tried to 
put cheerfulness and security into his tone. “Don’t 
take it like that. We mustn’t be frightened until there’s 
something to fear. I came here because I thought 
Lord Henry ought to be warned, in case Prob- 

ably they were common workingmen. Buck up, 
Peters!” He clapped the man reassuringly on the 
shoulder and ran up the steps of the porch. 

One of the long windows which gave upon this porch 
was open. Tommy hesitated a moment before it, for 
he felt hardly intimate enough with Henry Carnardon 
to burst in upon him through open windows. This 
errand, however, gave him excuse. As he stepped into 
the cool dimness within, he heard breathing behind him, 
and the man Peters was at his shoulder. Tommy 
nodded and went quickly along the narrow hallway 
into which the window opened. 

At the door of the square, book-lined study he paused. 


198 


TOMMY CARTERET 


The room was dim and shadowy as always, cool and 
faintly odorous of leather, but some upper panels of the 
Venetian shutters had been opened to the morning, so 
that a shaft of sunlight, yellow and warm and golden, 
slanted down upon the great square writing-table where 
papers and open books and writing things lay confused. 

Lord Henry Carnardon sat in his chair at the big table. 
His back, bent studiously forward, was toward the door- 
way. Tommy gave a sudden little laugh of relief, but, 
even as he laughed, the man Peters’s hand shot out over 
his shoulder, pointing. 

‘‘Look, sir, look I” said Peters’s whisper, and Tommy 
looked. A crumpled square of white paper lay against 
Henry Carnardon’s back, just between the shoulders. 

When Tommy reached the chair by the writing-table 
— I think he had stood in the doorway, stiffened, bereft 
of movement, while one might count to a dozen — ^he 
saw what held the crumpled square of paper to the 
broad bent back. The handle of a knife stood out 
there — an old knife, Sicilian of make, wrought before 
the law which now obtains prohibited the sale or carry- 
ing of such. On the paper a single word had been 
scrawled by a finger dipped in red: 

TRADITORE 

The man was quite dead — dead and cold, and grimly, 
terribly heavy as Tommy Carteret lifted the fallen head 
and shoulders to search for signs of life. It would seem 
that he had been struck stealthily, from behind, while 
he was writing, for two written sheets lay there, and a 
third, half witten, with blots and splashes where his 
falling body had rolled the inked pen upon it. He had 
been struck deeply, too; he had died in a moment, for 


THE LAST DAYS OF CARTER 199 


there was no sign of any struggle. There had been but 
one movement — that dead collapse forward upon the 
written papers. 

It was in Tommy’s mind to raise the heavy body, to 
lay it in decency and dignity upon a couch or upon its 
bed as a dead man should lie, but, as his hand went out 
toward the Sicilian knife-handle, he halted. There 
were the coroner and his grim offices to think of. 
Nothing must be disturbed. 

‘‘Nothing but this,” said Tommy to himself, and 
pulled the crumpled red-scrawled paper from the dead 
man’s back and slipped it into his pocket. No prying, 
curious eyes should spell out that word over Henry 
Carnardon’s dead body, and ask what it meant and 
discover that it meant disgrace. 

He rose sighing, and the man Peters stood across the 
table, his two hands over his face, shaking to and fro 
with sobs. Tommy went quickly to the cabinet where 
the decanters and bottles stood, and returned with a 
glass half full of whiskey. 

“Drink that!” he said to the servant. “Drink all of 
it, and pull yourself together. There will be a great 
deal to do.” The man drank, holding the long glass to 
his lips with both hands. Then, when he had finished, 
he gave an odd, great shiver and was himself again. 

“ Thank you, sir I ” he said. “ I shall — do nicely now, 
sir. I know what must be done. Lord Henry has 
often told — ^talked of this — ^this that has happened. If 
you — don’t mind, sir, I think you would better not be 
mixed up in it. You know what these people are, here, 
sir. I can do everything.” 

“ Never mind about the people,” said young Tommy. 
“I must help you with the arrangements.” But the 
servant shook his head. 


200 


TOMMY CARTERET 


“If you don’t mind, sir,” he said, respectfully stub- 
born, “I think Lord Henry wouldn’t like it. Every- 
thing was arranged long since. His Lordship expected 
this. He has been expecting it for years. If you don’t 
mind, sir, I can look after it all. I shall — take his Lord- 
ship’s body back to England and tell the Duke what 
Lord Henry has told me to tell him.” There was a cer- 
tain determination about the man which Tommy knew 
must come from some previous instructions on the part 
of his dead master, and there was nothing to do but give 
way before it. 

“As you like,” said he, “but, if you find any diflBculty 
in your way or need any assistance, you know where I 
am to be found. I might at least send the coroner to 
you from the village.” 

“If you would be so good, sir,” said the man. He 
was leaning over the table where Henry Carnardon had 
been writing, and he lifted the three sheets of newly 
inscribed paper. 

“I think this is meant for you, sir,” he said. “It 
bears your name.” 

Tommy took the sheets into his hand, and the hand 
shook a little. Words from a man who is dead come 
strangely solemn. 

“My dear Carteret ” had said Henry Carnardon 

with death at his elbow, “I think the thing for which I 
have been waiting twenty very long years is at hand. 
There are two Italians in the neighbourhood — Sicilians. 
I saw them by sheer accident, an hour ago, as I walked 
in my front garden with the collie pup. They were sit- 
ting by the roadside to rest themselves, and I heard 
their voices through the lilac hedge. Also, I managed 
to obtain a glimpse of their faces, and they are not, I be- 
lieve, the ordinary workingmen they attempt to repre- 


THE LAST DAYS OF CARTER 201 


sent by their costume. A bit of their conversation I 
overheard, and — I shall not bore you with it, but it 
almost convinces me of the men’s mission here. 

“ Peters has gone to the village, and I am alone in the 
house. I have taken ordinary precautions. I have 
locked the doors and shut myself in. I do not, how- 
ever, believe that even if these two know I am here 
and have come to kill me they will make the attempt 
by day. I expect they will do it at night. In any case, 
I am writing this by way of a sort of contingent good bye 
to you. The danger I feel myself to be in may be a fan- 
cied one. In that case I shall tear these words up. But 
somehow I feel strongly that tho time is at hand and, my 
friend, I am glad, glad! In certain ways, too, I am sorry, 
for your coming here has made a great difference. We 
should have become fast friends, I know. Do you 
remember my telling you of the two prophecies about 
my death — ^that it would come when I had reached 
the half-century ? I told you also that I should be fifty- 
one years old on the first day of the coming September ? 
September first is next Tuesday. Odd, eh? — I write 
too much and rather at random. I had meant this to 
be but a word — nay, two — 'good bye’ — I find myself 
wondering, very thoughtfully and gravely, as I stand on 
the threshold-^o I, indeed, stand there ? — ^what your 
life is to be. Is it to drag on as mine has done in a hell 
of exile or do the pages to come hold surprises ? An odd 
and unreasonable conviction persists in me that it is to 
be the latter — surprises. What surprises, I wonder? 
At any rate, I hope and believe ” 

Here Henry Carnardon’s letter broke off abruptly, 
and here were the dried blots and smears of ink made 
by the falling pen. There was something unspeakably 
horrible in that unfinished sentence— those blots and 


202 


TOMMY CARTERET 


smears. It was as if the man had been calmly talking 
to young Carteret in his own person and had fallen dead 
beWeen two words. 

The written sheets slipped from Tommy’s hand, and 
a sudden little fit of shivering madness swept over him. 
His twitching hand caught blindly at the dead man’s 
shoulder, and a great bitter cry burst from him. 

‘‘Carnardon, Carnardon! Are you going to leave 
me alone, here? Carnardon, Carnardon I” 


CHAPTER XV 


The Reaping of the Whirlwind 

A man’s first waking thoughts on the morning of his 
wedding day should make interesting reading — ^his very 
first thoughts as he opens his eyes, blinking, and digs a 
sleepy fist into them, and yawns, and says to himself: 
‘‘Another day I What’s on for to-day ?” and then gives 
a great leap of mingled terror and delight (I’ll wager a 
goodly sum with you, Madame, that terror is, for the 
moment, uppermost) as he realises what is on for to-day. 
The last waking to freedom — even though it be a hate- 
ful freedom! To-morrow morning he wakes, the head 
of a family, with grim responsibility furrowing his brow. 
I fancy I see him squirm nervously under the blankets. 
I fancy I feel with him the hair at the back of my head 
stir and rise as awful, prophetic strains of the wedding- 
march chant through the room. Above all things, I 
should like a scrap-book filled with these thoughts — ^the 
thoughts of the men I have known, now gone under the 
yoke — unexpurgated, unspoiled by tactful later revision. 
They would be interesting documents, I promise you: 
something to laugh over — but not altogether; to weep 
over — ^not very seriously; to envy — ^perhaps. 

And the first pages of my scrap-book I should have 
reserved for the thoughts of Thomas Carteret 2nd — 
alias Carter of Half-Breed Hill — on a certain early Sep- 
tember morning that I know of; but Tommy has told 
me that there were no thoughts worth recording — ^at 
203 


204 


TOMMY CARTERET 


least, no dramatic moment given over to them, no 
sudden waking to mingled terror and joy. 

He was, indeed, awake the greater part of the night. 
He sat under the red lamp, alternately pufifing great 
clouds from the old brier pipe, and scribbling in the little 
journal disconnected strange bits of nonsense. — ^Even 
to my eye which loves the working of a mind under 
strain, the stuff is nonsense. Henry Carnardon’s death 
was heavy upon him — ^this I gather from the journal — 
and it seems to have been more in his mind than his 
own affairs. He went to bed, some time after midnight, 
but he slept fitfully, waking often and staring wide-eyed 
into the dark. Several times he rose and moved about 
the cabin aimlessly, without purpose. Once he opened 
the door and, pajama-clad as he was, went out into the 
dew-wet grass before the doorstep. 

It was well into the gray dawn, and birds and insects 
clamoured from the oak flat near by. A wind, raw and 
sharp for that season, tore past from the north, and 
clouds scudded overhead. To the eastward the sun 
was waking, and all the torn ragged sky there was crim- 
son and angry — an unlovely sky, a portentous sky — 
“Red in the morning, sailors’ warning.” Under it the 
house on the Dutch Creek road lay dark and still, sleep- 
ing, as it were, all unconscious of the crimson peril 
which hung over it. 

Tommy wondered if the girl there was asleep or, like 
himself, watching the night pass. Asleep, probably. 
Her nerves were sound. The wind bit through the thin 
silk of his jacket and shrieked suddenly in the tree-tops, 
and Tommy shivered and turned back into the cabin. 
He was unaccountably restless and full of an odd dread 
which he could not fathom. It was not the wedding 
which drew hourly nearer upon him; not the fact that 


THE REAPING OF THE WHIRLWIND 205 


this was the last day of bachelorhood. He had, in the 
past fortnight, fought all that out at length until re- 
bellion had laid down its arms in sheer weariness and 
despair. He was even, in a fashion, glad, for he thought 
that, for a time at least, recollection might be smothered 
in — no, not love, but love’s substitutes. She was a 
handsome girl, and a man’s a man! 

It was not his marriage which drove him to this odd 
fever of unrest, but something further, beyond the reach 
of knowledge or imagination — some strange premoni- 
tion. Who was it had felt like this before a certain 
calamity ? Who was it had said : 

“My old bones presage ” Ah, Arabella Crow- 

ley, enacting Cassandra at the Devereux’s ball 1 That 
prescience of evil which she felt so strongly must have 
moved in her like this. Evil ? Aye, but what evil now ? 
Had not the gods already done their worst? Tommy 
threw himself wearily down upon poor Mrs. Satterlee’s 
fateful bed and tried to close his eyes, but sleep would 
have none of him. He was up, pacing about like a 
wakeful cat, in ten minutes. 

“It’s no good!” he said, sighing. “There are devils 
in me.” And he sat down at the writing-table, pulling the 
curtains from the window to let in the brightening day. 
He wrote three or four business letters of small impor- 
tance, and, after a half-hour of frowning meditation, a 
brief note to old Arabella Crowley, stating that he was, 
on that day, to be married, and asking her to inform his 
father. I have read that note. It is as curt as a word 
of instruction to one’s solicitor; but I think old Arabella 
understood. After this he tubbed and dressed at 
leisure, and spent an hour over a book until breakfast 
time came and with it the admirable Jared. Jared had 
emulated the early bird. He had made a sunrise visit 


206 


TOMMY CARTERET 


to the village, and carried an armful of parcels, one of 
them of a portentous aspect — ^borne gingerly. 

bought me a new hat,’’ said he with June-rose 
blushings of pride. ‘‘ I ain’t aimin’ to be nowise a blot 
on this hyuh weddin’ party. I aims to be fine as any- 
body.” He removed the wrappings from the new hat 
and awesomely set that article upon his head. It was 
a silk hat, shaggy of plumage, curly and wide of brim, 
belled of crown, an ancient beaver. It antedated Jared 
by many years — a thing to frighten horses with, to awe 
young children into stricken silence. Jared coquetted 
before a near-by mirror, and his master bestowed praise. 

“You will completely put me in the shade,” he said. 
“No one will believe that I am the groom. They’ll 
think I am a mere coachman or something. Were 
there letters?” 

Jared, flushed with vain satisfaction, produced two. 

“They was a telegraph,” he said, searching his pock- 
ets, “but I’m dumbed ef I ain’t lost it. D’ye reckon it 
was important ? Ef it was, I could go back to Winston’s 
an’ git another copy. They’d be sure to remember the 
wo’ds.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” said young Tommy. “I know 
what it was. It was from a bank. To-morrow will do 
well enough. The operator won’t forget.” 

Somehow the interminable day wore through to its 
close. The wedding was to take place in the evening 
at the little church of the Hard-Shell Baptists in the 
village. The wedding party was to drive thither, with 
the cool of the evening, in wagons and carts, and, after 
the ceremony and the wedding supper at the so-called 
hotel across the common from Winston’s, Tommy was 
to drive his bride home to Half-Breed Hill, behind the 
faithful mare. 


THE REAPING OF THE WHIRLWIND 207 


He himself would greatly have preferred a quieter 
affair — a simple ceremony at the Canfield home, and 
none of this parade, but Mariana had insisted. She had 
no mind to be cheated out of her little display, and 
Tommy gave in to her. 

The day wore through. It was an unpleasant day. 
That cold wind of the early morning had brought rain- 
clouds, and then, dying, had left a sultry, oppressive 
heat which endured till nightfall. There was thunder 
from time to time ; low, distant, growling thunder, with 
flashes of heat lightning but no rain — only those black 
still clouds and the hot still air. The birds chirped dis- 
consolately and went to bed at noon. Smoke rose 
straight and unwavering from the chimney, and, high 
in the air, spread into a flat dark cloud which hung as 
motionless as the clouds above it. 

At six of the evening the rain still threatened, with 
lightning flashes and mutterings of thunder, but still 
bode its time. Thanks to the low-hanging mass of 
cloud, it was almost dark — a green, unwholesome dark- 
ness — and Tommy, at his dressing in the stifling cabin, 
had to light the lamps. This dressing, like the triumphal 
procession and the hotel dinner, pleased him not at all, 
but Mariana had begged him to appear en grande tenue, 
and he had no good reason for refusing. As he knotted 
his lawn tie, the admirable Jared, looking somehow 
small and wasted under that hat of ceremony, drove up 
with the wagon and team borrowed from his brother. 
Another man sat in the wagon with him, but sprang out 
when the wagon stopped, and, after a few words with 
Jared, waved his hand and walked away eastward, as 
if he meant to cross the Little Bottom toward Dutch 
Creek road. Tommy came to the door, coatless, with 
a hair-brush in either hand. 


208 


TOMMY CAKTERET 


‘‘Who was that?” he asked. The admirable Jared 
scowled uneasily across the bottom where the other 
man had gone. 

“ It was Jim Patterson,” he said. “ You know Patter- 
son — big, high man ’ith a yallow beard. He was one of 
them as come that there night fo' to tar an’ feather ye.” 
Tommy laughed, remembering the blond giant who had 
hustled his fellows out of the cabin on that memorable 
occasion, but as he was turning back to his interrupted 
toilet, Jared, still scowling uneasily, spoke again. 

“This ain’t no time fo’ to be a-spreadin’ bad news, 
nor yet to fright ye onless it’s necessary,” he said, “but 
they’s somethin’ queer goin’ on, an’ you-all ought to 
know about it.” 

“Queer?” said young Tommy. “How, queer? 
What do you mean?” 

“Old Dave Canfield,” said Jared, “has gone an’ lit 
out, somewheres. He ain’t ben seen sence mawnin’.” 
Tommy frowned. A last bit of old Dave’s hostility, it 
would seem. 

“Ah, well I” said he, “we can get on without him, I 
expect.” 

“He took his gun,” said Jared. 

“Well?” demanded young Tommy. 

“An’ Patterson,” continued Jared, “beared some 
talkin’ a-goin’ on, yisteddy, ’bout how Joe Borral an’ 
old Dave an’ some o’ them others was aimin’ to make 
trouble. I dunno. Maybe it’s all brag, but — I dunno. 
Joe Borral’s ben nigh crazy sence ye shook him up, that 
night. What do ye think on it?” 

Tommy looked up at the black-green rainclouds for 
a long time in silence. 

“ I don’t know what to think of it,” he said at last, and 
he shook his head, sighing. “I’ve given up laughing 


THE REAPING OF THE WHIRLWIND 209 


at these people. They’re — they’re beyond me. I’m 
willing to believe anything of them. I expect we’d best 
go on over to the Canfields’ as we had intended. We 
can tell the women and see what they think. Let them 
decide.” 

He pulled on his coat and threw a long rain-coat into 
the wagon in case of later need. Then, as if by an after- 
thought, and while Jared was tying the mare, hitched 
to her cart, at the tail-board of the wagon, he went back 
and took up the pistol with which, on that other night, 
he had held off his would-be entertainers, and he slipped 
it into the pocket of his coat. One could never be sure of 
what might happen in this God-forsaken land. 

Beside the Canfield home on Dutch Creek road 
another wagon stood waiting with Mariana’s young 
brother proudly erect on its seat. He was in his rusty 
best, with a preposterous bow of white ribbon slowly 
choking him to death. Another bow of like proportions 
ornamented the driving-whip. Patterson, the yellow- 
bearded, stood at the wheel, chatting with the lad. He 
nodded affably to Tommy Carteret, and Tommy ob- 
served that he carried a shot-gun. 

The three women, Mariana, her mother and her sis- 
ter, Rose Barrows, waited on the side porch. Tommy’s 
heart sank as his eyes fell upon the girl he was to 
marry. She, too, was in her best, her awful best, and it 
sat very ill upon her. It was as if, by some strange 
freak of magic, the costume accentuated in her certain 
unfamiliar traits — unlovely traits which in her torn, 
soiled frocks of simple make had been hidden. She 
looked oddly like her sister, without her sister’s kindli- 
ness. She looked older, less gipsyish. There was 
something tight about her neck, and over it her cheeks 
showed square and coarse, and her chin doubled. Her 


210 


TOMMY CARTERET 


waist was drawn too tight, and the lines of her bust 
above it were those of a woman of thirty. Also, she 
had been curling her hair. Under a too flamboyant 
hat it stood out about her head and cheeks in a mass of 
silly, wooly fluff — ^for all the world like a bath-sponge. 
This girl who had been, in her simple frocks of every 
day, a splendid beauty, looked, in her wedding dress, a 
vulgar, hard-eyed country belle — one to go with farmer 
lads to the local fair and giggle through a day of rough 
pleasantry. This was never the Mariana who had 
picked blackberries on that hot morning! 

“Oh, my God!” said Tommy Carteret under his 
breath, and the heart in him turned sick. 

The girl ran eagerly down the steps of the porch to 
meet him. Half way she halted, for an instant, with a 
quick little breath of pleasure. She had never before 
seen Tommy in evening dress. 

“You look like — ^like such a gentleman!” she said, 
and Tommy scowled. The speech went with her 
altered bearing. But quickly again the smile of 
pleasure left her face. 

“Has Jared told you?” she demanded. “Has he 
said that paw — ^that my father went away and hasn’t 
come back?” 

“ Yes,” said young Tommy. “ He told me that and — 
that among other things. I was going to ask you what 
you thought it best to do. It may be — I don’t want 
anything unpleasant to occur, you know. We might 
possibly make some different arrangements.” 

“Different arrangements?” she cried, and her voice 
was sharp with anxiety and disappointment. “We 
won’t do nothing of the kind. Who’s afraid of them ? 
Oh, you’ve been hearing about Joe Borral and them, 
have you? No, we won’t make different arrange- 


THE REAPING OF THE WHIRLWIND 211 


merits. We won’t give them that much satisfaction. 
If they do anything, they’ll make a row at the church. 
Well, who cares ? They can’t hurt us, can they ? Mr. 
Patterson is going to take paw’s place and ride in the 
other wagon with Rose and maw — mother.” 

Tommy frowned uncomfortably. 

“I don’t like ” he began, but the girl impatiently 

cut him short. 

“Do you want to get out of it ?” she demanded. “I 
tell you it’s all right! Ah, no, no! I didn’t mean that ! 

Please forgive me! I’m nervous and mad and I 

didn’t sleep last night. Really, though, it’s all right. 
Those fools may make a row at the church, but I don’t 
think so. I think they’re just off getting drunk to- 
gether.” She turned to the blond-bearded Patterson, 
who lounged near. 

“Don’t you think so, Jim?” she asked. Patterson 
shook his head. 

“ It mought be,” he said. “ It mought be. I reckon 
I don’t know nothin’ about it.” 

“If we are going,” said young Tommy, “we’d best 
start, I think, before it is quite dark. It may rain before 
we reach the village. Look at those clouds!” A sinis- 
ter, greenish light was abroad. The sun, near the west- 
ern horizon, had found there a thinner veil, and it was 
less gloomy than an hour before, but the green light 
served only to outline the low masses of threatening 
cloud, to turn living faces into a corpse-like pallor, 
to fill hearts with foreboding. 

Rose Barrows came down from the porch and she 
pulled the little white shawl which, in spite of the heat, 
she wore, closer about her shoulders with an uneasy 
shiver. 

“I’m — afeared,” she said, appealing, as it were, to 


212 


TOMMY CARTERET 


Tommy Carteret. “Couldn’t we send an’ have the 
minister come out hyuh? I’m afeared o’ them men.” 
But her sister blazed sudden anger. 

“You’re a miserable coward!” she cried. “If you 
want to stay home, stay there! Little I care about it!” 
And the elder woman turned heavily away toward her 
mother, who stood silent and well-nigh invisible in a 
corner of the porch above. 

Mariana Canfield and Tommy went in the first 
wagon, driven by the admirable Jared in his hat of 
pride. The faithful mare, drawing her cart, trotted 
behind, and after her came the other wagon with the 
two women and Jim Patterson. Patterson bethought 
him of a duty as he was mounting to his seat, and 
stepped across to where young Tommy was helping his 
bride over the wagon- wheel. 

“Hyuh’s a telegraph fo’ you-all,” he said. “I nigh 
forgot it. Young Sam, my boy, foun’ it a-lyin’ in the 
road this mawnin’. It ain’t ben opened, so I reckon 
you or Jared must ’a’ dropped it.” 

“Jared lost it this morning,” said young Tommy. 
“Thanks very much.” He nodded apologetically 
toward Mariana Canfield in her seat above him and tore 
open the yellow envelope. The message was short, but 
he had to read it many times over, for the words refused 
to mean anything. They shifted before his eyes and 
wheeled slowly about and made funny little nonsense 
phrases. 

John Hartwell died last night in street. Heart 
failure. Come. Arabella Crowley.” 

Tommy Carteret put up his arms over the high wagon- 
wheel and laid his face upon them and fell into a fit of 
shaking, helpless, hysterical laughter. It was not until 


THE REAPING OF THE WHIRLWIND 213 


the girl waiting above had spoken to him twice and 
finally cried out in a voice sharp with alarm that he 
pulled himself together. 

“It’s — nothing!” he gasped, wiping his eyes. And 
he laughed again, looking up at her, quite uncontrolla- 
bly, and stuffed his handkerchief in his mouth to 
smother the laughter. “ It’s nothing; only a — ^joke; the 
greatest joke ever — played in all the — world. Such 

a ” He shook convulsively as he climbed over the 

wheel. 

“Drive on, Jared!” he said, and dropped into his seat 
with his hands over his face. The girl pressed him to 
explain, but Tommy shook his head, saying only that 
it was a great joke — ^the greatest joke in the world, and 
she drew a little away from him on the seat, frowning. 
But after a time, when they had turned from Dutch 
Creek road toward the village and were rolling along 
smoothly through the level, white dust, she crept again 
close to him, looking into his face and holding his arm 
with her two hands. 

“The time’s — come, at last, hasn’t it?” she said in 
a half- whisper. “I — didn’t think it ever could. It 
was too — beautiful to be true, but it’s really, truly come, 
hasn’t it ? ” And because she was very much in earnest 
and as deeply moved as her intense nature could be, 
she looked, for that instant, quite the old Mariana, in 
spite of the dreadful hat and the bath-sponge hair and 
the ill-chosen gown — quite the old Mariana, with the 
old charm and allurement. 

Tommy, shaking his mood from him, slipped an arm 
about her waist and held her nearer, looking down into 
her face. 

“I hope this — I hope you’ll never be sorry for this,” 
he said, “this marrying me. I’m not certain that I’ve 


214 


TOMMY CARTERET 


got it in me to make anybody happy, but I’m going to 
spend my life trying. I’m going to be very good to 
you.” 

The girl smiled up at him through that yellow-green 
gloom. 

‘T’m not afraid,” she said. ‘T know you’ll be good 
to me, and I — Oh, I’ll be good to you, too! Honest, I 
will! You don’t know how I — how much I — care 
about you — Oh!” She shivered and hid her face as 
a flash of lightning streaked through the clouds almost 
over their heads. A roar of thunder followed quickly — 
the storm was not far away now — and the horses which 
drew the wagon plunged and shied. 

‘T have a rain-coat here,” said Tommy, ‘‘in case you 
need it. It may not rain, you know. Sometimes this 
lightning goes on for a long time before the rain falls. 
Indeed, it has been at it all day, to-day. Why, you’re 
trembling from head to foot! Are you afraid of the 
lightning ? Come closer to me. Hide your face against 
my shoulder, so ! He drew the girl into his arms, laugh- 
ing half amusedly, and laid her face against his shoulder, 
but she raised herself, holding by her two hands until 
she could look into his eyes. Her face gleamed very 
white in the strange, greenish half-light. 

“I’m afraid!” she cried, shivering. “I’m afraid all 
over! I hate thunder-storms, but IVe never been 
afraid like this before. What is it? What’s the mat- 
ter with me? I’m horribly afraid. Oh, I wish we 
hadn’t come!” The lightning flashed again, followed 
by its reverberating roll of thunder, 'and the girl screamed, 
hiding her face, but she was up once more in an instant, 
holding by her two hands, white-faced. 

“I’m afraid!” she cried again. “I’m horribly 
afraid. Do you think it could strike us — ^the lightning ? 


THE REAPING OF THE WHIRLWIND 215 


Do you think it would dare ? Do you think it’s trying 
to separate us — now at the last minute ?” 

Tommy laughed, drawing her closer into his arms. 

“That is foolish!” he said. “The lightning won’t 
strike us. We’re perfectly safe. It’s just an ordinary 
thunder-storm of the commonest sort. I’m sorry you’re 
frightened. If I’d known, we wouldn’t have started till 
the storm was over.” 

But the girl shook and trembled in his arms so 
violently that he was almost alarmed. He saw that 
for some reason she was very badly frightened. 

“Something’s the — matter with me,” she said. “I 
don’t know — ^what it is. I’m afraid of everything — 
not just the lightning. I feel as if something awful 
was going to happen. Do you think we ought to have 
come? — Ah, I’m afraid! I know it’s foolish, but I 
can’t help it. I’m afraid of — losing you. No, no! 
don’t — laugh. I’m serious. The lightning might kill 
you — or me, any minute — Hold me — closer. Oh, 
what’s the — matter with me? I’ve longed for — to- 
night so and — waited for it so! — If I should lose you 
now, I don’t know — I tell you, something’s going to 
happen to us! I feel it all — about us, everywhere. 
No, no, no! It’s not the storm. It’s something else — 
I don’t know what.” She was rapidly working her- 
self into a state of hysteria, and Tommy did his best to 
quiet her, seeing that her nerves had quite gone to bits; 
but she would not be quieted. She turned, struggling 
in his arms, and she caught his head between her hands, 
holding his face close to hers. 

“Whatever it is,” she said wildly, “it sha’n’t separate 
us! Promise me that it sha’n’t separate us! We’re 
as good as married, aren’t we? Aren’t we? They 
can’t come between us now; nothing can, not God 


216 


TOMMY CARTERET 


nor nothing! I tell you, I wonH leave you! I’ll come 
to you from anywhere! They can’t make me stay 
away, not if they kill me, even. I’d come to you from 
the other side of all the hells there is!” She screamed 
again as the lightning flashed, burying her face upon 
his shoulder, and, just then, one of the horses stumbled 
over something in the road, and went down, and the 
other reared straight upward, and plunged and began 
to struggle, lashing out with its heels and squealing. 

Jared leaped to the ground almost as soon as the 
horse fell, and Tommy, standing upright in the wagon, 
his arms about the shivering, sobbing girl, who crouched 
on the seat, heard him call from the darkness, in front: 

‘‘They’s a rope! Look out! Look out!” 

A yellow fire, which was not lightning, flashed from 
the thicket by the roadside, and it was followed by a 
roar which was not thunder. Something tore past 
Tommy’s breast, just above the girl’s head, snatching 
at his coat lapels. The wind of it spat sharply into 
his face. 

‘^Get down!” cried Tommy, and strove to force the 
girl to her knees in the wagon-body. ‘‘Get down! 
They’re shooting! Lie down, flat. Will you get 
down!” But she fought with him as she had fought 
that other night in the cabin on Half-Breed Hill, pull- 
ing herself up by her strong, young arms. 

“I won’t get down!” she gasped, struggling. “Let 
me up! I want to be with you. Let me up.” 

The wagon lurched and jerked under them as the 
frightened horse plunged, kicking in his traces. Jared, 
hatless and swift, was reaching under the front seat 
for the gun he had laid there upon starting, and Tommy 
still fought and strove with the girl he was to marry, 
trying to force her down out of danger. 


THE REAPING OF THE WHIRLWIND 217 


“I won’t!” she cried fiercely. ‘T won’t! Let me 
up!” She was, in her madness of excitement, almost 
as strong as he, and she shook herself free from him 
and threw her arms about his neck, holding him with 
a grip which he could not loosen. It seemed to him 
that they stood there, upright, for hours. He heard 
cries from the other women in the darkness behind. 
He heard a shout from the blond-bearded Patterson 
and the sound of running feet on the hard road. Pat- 
terson was coming to the rescue. He saw flashes of 
lightning which showed the long, white road and the 
still, black shapes of the trees beside and above it, and 
he saw strange little bursts of flame — ^little yellow flow- 
ers — in the gloom at either side, and heard cracking, 
whip-like reports. The other horse was down now 
and still, but the first one struggled as he lay, kicking 
and jerking the wagon about in tiny leaps and 
bounds. 

“They’ll kill us!” cried the girl, with her face cold 
against his. “They’re hid in the brush. They’ll kill us 
both, but we’ll go together. They can’t take me away 
from you. Can they ? Can they ? I’ll never leave you, 
I swear it. I’ll come to you wherever you are. I love 
you as much as — ^that! I’ll never — never — Aah!” 
She whirled suddenly in his arms as if some one had 
laid a hand upon her shoulder and turned her about. 
Tommy’s hand felt all at once hot and wet where it 
clasped her. 

“You’re hit!” he cried in a great voice. “My God, 
you’re hit! Where is it?” 

Her face dropped against his throat, oddly weak and 
limp. 

“My — shoulder!” she whispered. “It’s nothing, 
nothing! The same — shoulder that was — ^broke. Lay 


218 


TOMMY CARTERET 


me down — and — come with me. Maybe they — won’t 
hit — you.” 

Tommy thrust the seat out of the way with his foot, 
and started to lay the girl flat in the wagon-body. He 
was shaking and weak. 

‘^They — can’t separate us — nohow,” she said again. 
“I’ll come to you — wherever you are. Not even God 

couldn’t ” She jerked in his arms again, as he 

bent with her, and her head fell back. Just then there 
came another flash of lightning, unbearably bright, 
and in its sudden glare Tommy saw the girl’s face 
under his, eyes open, lips parted, green-white against 
the dark. Half-way between hair and brows a round 
black spot lay, and a stain spread from it. 

Then I think the gloom turned to crimson about him, 
and he went quite mad — Berserk-mad, for Jared says 
that he stood upright a moment in the lurching wagon, 
shrieking horrible, blasphemous curses in a high, shrill 
voice, and then, brandishing a pistol brought out from 
Heaven knew where, sprang into the road, falling upon 
one knee as he alighted. 

It seems that the lightning was flashing almost con- 
tinuously at that time, making the scene like day, and 
the first great drops of rain were beginning to pound 
upon the white dust. In the glare of the lightning, a 
man stepped into the road, some few yards ahead — a 
man still and grim, with a gun in his hands, half-raised. 
Jared says that, at the sight of this man. Tommy Car- 
teret cried out hoarsely and ran forward, firing with the 
pistol as he ran. Jared himself and Patterson, the 
blond giant, fired at the same moment, and the man 
went down, but Tommy Carteret halted suddenly in 
his course and seemed to raise himself high on his tip- 
toes, arms upstretched oddly, as if he were reaching 


THE REAPING OF THE WHIRLWIND 219 


for something. Then he whirled about once and fell 
face down in the dust, and lay still with the heavy rain 
beating upon his back as he lay. 

It seems that after this there was no more firing 
from among the trees and underbrush; only a great 
silence that was broken by the downpour of the rain 
and an occasional rumble of thunder. 

After a time a woman came stumbling slowly through 
the gloom. She carried a lantern which she had 
brought from the second wagon. She stopped beside 
the wagon, whose horses lay dead, and looked into it, 
holding the lantern high. Then, with a little dry sob, 
she turned and crept to the man who lay face down in 
the road, and knelt beside him, and laid her head upon 
his still body, and began to weep very bitterly. 

Jared says that she spoke, as it were to the man 
who lay there, but he could hear her words only once : 

‘T told ye ^twould be so. I told ye they wasn^t any 
happiness in it I” 

Then, presently, she called Jared to her aid, and 
they turned Tommy Carteret over on his back. One 
sleeve of his coat was torn near the shoulder where a 
bullet had pierced his arm. That need not be serious. 
Besides it, there seemed to be no body wound, but at 
one side of his head, just over the ear, a dark stain was 
spreading. It had marked the dust where he lay. 

‘Ts he — daid?” said Jared, looking into the face 
of the woman who knelt across from him in the driving 
rain. The woman tore open the front of Tommy’s 
shirt and laid her ear upon his breast. Then she 
dragged the lantern nearer and felt with her fingers 
at that wound over the ear. 

‘‘No,” she said. “He ain’t daid, thank Gawd. 
He’s only stunted, but I reckon it’s bad stunted. I 


220 


TOMMY CARTERET 


reckon he mought die. Maybe his haid is broke open, 
thuh. I can’t tell.” 

The rain beat in their faces and upon the face of the 
jaan who lay between them, and, overhead, thunder 
rolled and muttered. The woman’s eyes were hag- 
gard. 

“What ye a-goin’ to do ’ith him?” she asked after a 
time. 

Jared says that he shook his head. He did not 
know. 

“Take him away I” she cried, half fiercely. “He 
oughtn’t never to ’a’ come hyuh. Look what it’s done 
to him! Maybe it’s — ^killed him. Take him away 
to the village. There’ll be hell to pay fo’ this night 
when it comes out to-morrow. Yo’ mare ain’t hurted. 
Take him into the cart an’ drive to the village an’ put 
him on that thuh midnight train, n’oth. They’s 
doctors an’ horspittals an’ all, in Chicawgo. They’ll 
save him ef anybody can.” 

Jared stared at her in the flickering lantern-light. 

“I reckon,” he said slowly. “I reckon that’s the 
bes’ thing ’at could be did. Hoi’ on! How ’bout 
Marianner ? ” 

“She’s daid,” said the woman stolidly. “They 
managed fo’ to kill her wen they was tryin’ to kill him. 
She’s daid an’ I’m glad. She got him into this hyuh. 
He’d be — alive an’ well ef it wasn’t fo’ her.” Jared 
says that she seemed to feel no sorrow whatever 
over her sister’s death, only bitterness and hatred, 
and he wondered why. It seemed to him rather 
horrible. But there were things that Jared did 
not know. 

“I’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll shorely do it. He mus’ 
be got away befo’ anybody fin’s out about what’s ben 


THE REAPING OF THE WHIRLWIND 221 


done to-night. But I ain^t got any money. How am 
I a-goin’ to git him to Chicawgo 

“Go back to the cabin she said. “He mus’ have 
money thuh. It ain’t fur, an’ you’ve got mo’ time ’an 
you need. It ain’t eight o’clock yet. Take him in the 
cart an’ go back to the cabin. Then go to the village 
an’ get Winston to help you.” 

Jared says admiringly that this woman with her 
white, fierce face and her haggard eyes seemed inspired 
by the gods of wit and common sense. For himself, 
he acknowledges to a mind made blank as a child’s 
by horror. He says that he called the blond giant 
Patterson to his aid — Patterson had gone up the little 
stretch of road to look at the fallen man who lay hud- 
dled there. It was Joe Borral. I find myself wishing 
it had been old Dave. • And they brought the cart 
nearer (the mare was neighing shrilly with some vague 
sense of disaster, and pulling at her halter) and, be- 
tween them, they lifted the heavy figure in its dishevelled 
evening dress and set it in the two-wheeled cart. Jared 
thinks that, just before they raised it. Rose Barrows, 
sobbing a little to herself, kissed the cold, drawn face, 
but that may be only an idea of his. I wonder. Then 
Jared mounted to his seat, and, with his arms about 
Tommy’s body, drove away. As he passed the wagon, 
low, shivering, moaning cries came from it, and at first 
he thought that Mariana Canfield was not dead, only 
hurt and crying out; but Patterson came near just then, 
holding the lantern on high, and Jared saw that it was 
Mariana’s mother, who had crept there through the 
gloom and rain, and crouched in the wagon-bed with 
the girl’s head in her lap, swaying her withered body 
back and forth, keening her dead. 

Of the rest of this night’s work I can gather little. 


222 


TOMMY CARTERET 


in detail. Jared will not talk. His eyes fill with a 
sort of retrospective horror and dread when I press 
him, and he evades my questions. So you must pic- 
ture to yourself that long, lonely drive through the 
night, the rain beating into Jared’s face, the lightning 
flashing at intervals over his head, and the thunder 
rolling after it, the good mare stumbling in the mud, 
starting nervously at every flash from above, every 
thunder-clap. You must feel for yourself, as I some- 
times feel, that terrible weight in Jared’s arms which 
slips down, down, as his tired muscles relax their grip, 
and has to be heaved up again. Small wonder that 
he will not talk of it. 

At the cabin on Half-Breed Hill, he knew what to 
do. Tommy had often showed him the strong box 
which held his ready money and such papers as were 
of importance. He had no key, of course, but there 
were other ways. He took an axe, he says, and broke 
open the box with that. Inside he found a roll of bills, 
three or four hundred dollars in all, and a small sheaf 
of legal-seeming documents bound together by an 
elastic band. These he put in his pocket and hurried 
out again to the cart and what crouched therein. Tommy 
was still alive, for his heart beat feebly, and somehow 
the conviction grew in Jared’s mind — this much he will 
admit — that his master was not to die. Then there was 
the long drive — longer this time — to do all over again. 
He went by another road. It was less direct, but he 
had more time than he needed, and he says that he 
could not have driven through that wood-flat where 
a wagon stood with two dead horses before it, and a 
little distance away a dead man lay, face down in the 
mud, with the rain beating on him. In the village he 
found Winston, worried and anxious because the wed- 


THE REAPING OF THE WHIRLWIND 223 


ding party was late in coming, and, when Winston had 
been told the story of the nighPs tragedy, and had a 
little recovered from his horror — he had grown to love 
young Tommy Carteret as Jared had— the two men 
took their unconscious burden to the railway station 
and waited for the north-bound train. 

Here, then, ends this part of Tommy’s story. Here 
ends his sojourn in Egypt, and I am glad, for it reeks 
overmuch of blood and powder-smoke. It is too 
sombrely coloured with despair and hatred and lone- 
liness and passion. There is too much gloom in it — 
too little sunshine. It had to be told, for such it was — 
so Tommy lived through those few summer months. 
It is by no fault of mine that he did not live more 
merrily. 

Here I leave him, stretched flat and still on a wooden 
bench in the little railway waiting-room, with Jared 
and Winston sitting near, grief on both their rough, 
honest faces, their voices instinctively lowered as if 
in the presence of death. 

And as I leave him so, it comes to me with a shock 
that this was to have been his wedding hour. Henry 
Carnardon’s prophetic soul told him true, didn’t it? 
The unturned leaves held surprises, indeed! — sur- 
prises for more than Tommy. Where was poor Mari- 
ana Canfield just then, I wonder? Patterson must, 
by this time, have got the women to their home, I 
should think. Mariana will have been laid upon her 
bed then, doubtless, with the little old mother crouched 
beside her in the candlelight, moaning, and, across the 
room, another woman, still in the shadows, bitter-eyed, 
dry-cheeked, with hatred at her heart. 

Some strange curse fell upon every one who touched 
you in those days, didn’t it, Tommy? 


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0 



That Which Followed Tommy 


t'i'V 







CHAPTER XVr 


Mariana Keeps Her Word 

T he old Earl of Strope went up from Cannes to 
Geneva because he expected to meet his grand- 
daughter Isabeau de Monsigny, of whom he 
was extraordinarily fond, and her husband Ashton 
Beresford, of whom he was only a little less fond. 
The three of them were to have gone on together to 
Paris. But upon his arrival at the ‘‘National” he 
found a message stating that the other two had been 
compelled by important affairs to go on that very day 
without him. The old gentleman’s somewhat fam- 
ously irascible temper was ill adapted to bear a shock, 
and this disappointment well-nigh wrecked it alto- 
gether. Further, his journey had been very disagree- 
able, and his luncheon uneatable. So it came about 
that when, at his solitary dinner that evening, he was 
given a bottle of Chambertin of surprising and uncalled- 
for vileness, he came to the maddened conclusion that 
this world had been designed and peopled with the 
sole aim of making him unhappy, and that he was 
sorry he had not died at the age usually allotted to 
that climax. 

He cut short his dinner and, because the really good 
music of the hotel orchestra produced to his jaundiced 
soul only annoying discords, lighted a cigar and 
strolled out across the broad sheltered porch into the 
semi-gloom of the garden. It was a warm spring 
227 


228 


TOMMY CARTERET 


evening and the night air felt cool and grateful to him. 
He walked down one of the many little gravel paths, 
between borders of carefully trimmed box, knowing 
that at its end he would find a tiny, shrub-sheltered cuU 
de-sac with an iron tea-table and two or three comfort- 
able cane seats. His eyes, still a bit dazzled by the 
bright lights of the dining-room, did not see that the 
retreat was already occupied, but as he moved toward 
one of the flexible arm-chairs of cane, and put out his 
hand to turn it to his satisfaction, a man’s voice, high 
and sharp and nervous, called out suddenly from 
behind him, and to his left : 

‘T say, mind where you’re going, will you! Are 
you blind? Don’t you see that chair is occupied?” 
Of course the chair was quite empty, and the old Earl 
swung about irritably toward the speaker, working his 
heavy eyebrows up and down in the curious gorilla- 
fashion he had. 

“ What the devil do you mean ? ” he growled. There 
is no one in that chair. Are you drunk?” But the 
other man had already risen from his seat and 
stood, swaying a bit in the half-light, his hands over 
his face. 

‘T beg your pardon!” he said in a queer, half- 
strangled tone. “I beg a thousand — pardons. Yes, 
I’m— drunk — mad — anything you like. I — please don’t 
mind!” His hands dropped from his face, which 
seemed to be working uncontrollably, and the old 
Earl started forward with a sudden exclamation. 

“Good God!” he said. “It’s young Carteret! 
Carteret! What in Heaven’s name is the matter with 
you, lad?” He laid his great hands on the younger 
man’s shoulder and turned him into the light, which 
shone down the alley from the hotel porch. 


MARIANA KEEPS HER WORD 229 


“Lord — Strope!” said Tommy Carteret dully, and 
without any great surprise. 

“What's the matter with you?” demanded the old 
gentleman, frowning down anxiously into the other's 
face. “Been dining too well — 'not wisely but too 
well,' eh?'' 

“Oh, no!'' said Tommy Carteret. “No, it's not 
that. I don't know. I fancy I'm mad, after a fashion. 
It doesn't matter much.” 

The Earl jerked his head toward the arm-chair. 

“Thought somebody was sitting there?” he asked. 

“There was a — woman there,” said Tommy Car- 
teret. “She's gone now. You ran into her.” The 
elder man looked at him for a moment in thoughtful 
silence. 

“Come up to the hotel!” he said presently. “It is 
a bit cool here to be sitting about. We will have 
something to drink sent up to my room, and make 
ourselves comfortable there. It is more than a year 
since I have seen you.” 

Upstairs, in the big, bare sitting-room, he dropped 
his great frame into a stuffed chair and motioned the 
younger man to a seat opposite. A servant brought 
whiskey and ice and siphons of seltzer-water, and 
busied himself with filling the glasses, but the old 
gentleman did not speak. His keen eyes were upon 
Tommy Carteret's face. The gorilla eyebrows drew 
down again, and the square, white head shook strongly 
once or twice when he saw what a single year had 
done to this lad, how deeply and with what haggard 
lines it had marked his young face. 

Then, when the servant had left the room, closing 
the door gently after him, he spoke over his glass ; 

“Would you care to talk it over?” 


230 


TOMMY CARTERET 


Tommy Carteret made a little, weary, indifferent 
gesture. 

‘Tt might be a certain relief,’’ he said. ‘T rather 
think I should like it. At any rate, it would be a 
novelty. I seldom even speak to anybody, nowadays.” 
And so, in that tired, indifferent voice of his, he went 
on to tell Lord Strope of what had occurred to him 
during the past year, of his being forced to leave his 
home in New York at the instance of an injured 
husband. He said nothing of his sacrifice, here, of 
his going into exile to save another man’s honour, 
but he spoke of his life in that waste land of hills 
and bottoms and the trouble he had created there. 
He spoke — after a moment’s hesitation — of Lord 
Henry Carnardon, and at that the old Earl sat 
forward with sudden exclamation, pressing him with 
questions. 

‘T knew that Henry was dead,” said he. ‘‘The 
Duke wrote me that he was dead and that his servant 
had brought the body home for burial. Henry’s 
elder brother Robert is the present Duke, you know. 
The old Duke died ten years ago. To think of your 
meeting poor Henry Carnardon in that hell yonder! 

“Eh! Queer things happen. Poor old Harry! I 
was fond of him before he came his cropper with those 
Sicilian devils. Our mothers were sisters. I was 
fond of him. Get on with your tale, lad!” And 
Tommy went on to tell of the hatred and hostility he 
had so unwittingly inspired among those hill neighbours 
of his, and of Mariana Canfield, and of Henry Carnar- 
don’s advice, and of that last terrible night of storm and 
tragedy. 

“They patched me up somehow, there in the Chicago 
hospital,” he said. “And they said I was fit again, and 


MARIANA KEEPS HER WORD 231 


turned me out and told me to take a sea voyage to build 
up my strength once more. I took it.” 

“Yes, yes!” said the old gentleman. “That’s all 
very well, but” — he jerked his white head toward the 
open window — “how about the matter of that chair 
down there?” 

“That comes later,” said Tommy Carteret. He 
sat forward in his chair, frowning into Lord Strope’s 
eyes, and, for the first time, a hint of feeling seemed 
to come into his voice, a certain earnestness which was 
almost solemnity. 

“Did I make it plain,” he asked, “what she — ^what 
this girl said to me just before she was killed ? She said, 
‘We’re as good as married, aren’t we? Aren’t we?’ 
She said, ‘They can’t come between us now, nothing 
can, not God nor nothing! I tell you I won’t leave 
you! I’ll come to you from anywhere. They can’t 
make me stay away, not if they kill me, even. I’d 
come to you from the other side of all the hells there 
is!’ Well, she came.” 

“What’s that?” cried the old Earl sharply. “What 
did you say ? ” 

“I said she came,” said Tommy Carteret. “She 
kept her word and came. I don’t know how. I don’t 
know, any more than you do, how she was able to 
cross the barrier, but she came. They couldn’t keep 
her away, as she had said, not even by killing her.” 

The Earl sank back again in his chair and sat for 
a little while silent, staring thoughtfully across at the 
younger man, under his great shaggy brows. 

“Oh, yes,” said Tommy Carteret. “I know what 
you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I am mad. 
Perhaps I am. I don’t know. I seem to be perfectly 
sane on other matters, though.” 


232 


TOMMY CARTERET 


The old gentleman shook his white head. 

^‘No/’ said he. was not thinking that. You 
are not mad — in any common sense of the word, at 
least. But the thing is strange. Tell me more about 
it. When did this — this illusion — ^visitation — what 
you will — first come to you, anyhow ? ” 

“I don’t quite know,” said Tommy. “It was too 
slow of growth, I should think, to tell precisely. When 
I came out of the hospital, although they told me I was 
cured — and so I was as far as the bullet wounds were 
concerned — I went about in an odd sort of — of haze. 
Everything about me seemed feverish and unnatural 
and unreal. I had that last night with the lightning 
and thunder and the fighting and — and her face — the 
girl’s face — as I saw it by a lightning flash just after 
she was killed, before my eyes constantly. I couldn’t 
get rid of it. And I kept hearing her voice, too, night 
and day. It was — sufficiently horrible. So I went 
to Boston — I wouldn’t risk New York, for fear of being 
seen by somebody who would know me — and there 
took ship for Naples. That was near the end of last 
September. I’ve been roaming about from one place 
to another ever since. Eight months it is, isn’t it? — 
I think, I am not certain, but I think it was on ship- 
board that she — first began to — ^live and move and do 
independent things — independent of my will, you 
know. As I said before, I had the picture of her as 
she looked that last night, dead, always before my 
mind. Well, I expect I used to go off my head, over 
it, now and then. I was weak and nervous and all, 
you know. I expect I used to talk to it and — ^beg it 
to go away, probably. All that sort of thing. Any- 
how, it grew less horrible, less vivid, and I began to 
see her more as she had been while alive. I began to 


MARIANA KEEPS HER WORD 233 


live over those weeks when I had known her— I didn't 
want to, you know; it was no choice of mine. I couldn't 
help it. Then — I don't know when — she simply came 
to me. I don't think I was surprised, particularly. 
You see, I was living inside myself altogether. The 
things about me were no more real than the things in 
my head. She simply came to me, that's all. And 
she has been with me ever since. The — feverishness 
of the thing is quite gone, you know. I'm no longer 
haunted by dreams or imaginings or anything of the 
sort. I don't see the picture of that last night unless 
I deliberately call it up. Simply — the woman has 
come to me as she said she would. She's perfectly 
real — except to the touch. She goes everywhere with 
me. If she should come into this room now she would 
seem quite as actual flesh and blood as you seem — until 
I tried to touch her. She talks to me. She answers 
questions. She sees the things about her and com- 
ments upon them. She alters in appearance from 
time to time as any woman does. For example, she is 
quite a bit stouter than she used to be. She is the 
type which takes on weight rather early in life. She 
looks older by several years than before — before we 
came away from her home. She is beginning to 
resemble rather oddly an elder sister of hers whom I 
knew." He paused and looked up at the elder man 
with a little twitching, deprecatory smile— an appealing 
little smile. 

‘^1 dare say it all sounds frightful rot, to you," he 
said. “I dare say you want to laugh — I shouldn't 
blame you. Of course it's hardly a laughing matter to 
me." 

But Lord Strope shook his head, frowning. 

“I never felt less inclined to laughter," he said. 


234 


TOMMY CARTERET 


He made as if he would speak further, but shook his 
head once more and busied himself with choosing and 
lighting another of his great black cigars. Then, over 
the wreaths of smoke, he sat silent for a long time, 
watching young Tommy Carteret’s worn, thin face. 

“I am an old man,” he began at last. “I am eighty- 
three years old, and I have seen and heard many odd 
things — ^very many, but I think I have never heard of 
anything quite so strange as this, nor so appalling — 
an illusion, . a phantom which moves and talks and 
answers questions, which grows old as living things do I 
Good God! the thing is awful! It is beyond belief.” 

“Quite so!” said Tommy Carteret. “If a man 
had come to me a year ago and described such a thing 
I should probably have sympathised with him out- 
wardly, and inwardly called him a liar. Nevertheless, 
it is true. It exists — ^whether in some crazed cell of 
my brain, or actually, objectively, I do not know. 
The woman has come back. She — I shall see her 
when I leave you here and go to my own rooms. She 
might even — come in here, looking for me. Sometimes 
she does that.” His eyes shifted nervously to the door 
and back again, and he made a little uneasy movement 
in his chair. “Once,” he said, “she came into a room 
where I was dining with some men — it was in Malta 
— ^and I — I made a fool of myself before them all. 
Of course they thought I was mad. It was very 
unpleasant.” 

“Ah!” said Lord Strope, nodding. He did not feel 
called upon to tell young Tommy that he had already 
heard of this occurrence from a British officer of En- 
gineers — all but Tommy’s name. “You say,” he 
asked, “that you will find her in your quarters when 
you go there. Do you mean, then, that she lives — 


MARIANA KEEPS HER WORD 235 


that is to say, that she — she remains with you con- 
stantly ?” 

Tommy nodded, and a bit of colour came up over his 
cheeks, as it were from a certain embarrassment. 

‘^She is under the impression,” he said, ‘‘that we — 
we are married. That is, as she puts it, as good as 
married I She said that the night on which she was 

killed. She It is impossible to go into details, 

really. It is very unpleasant.” 

The Earl said “Ah I” again in a deeper tone, and 
a certain pitying horror came over his grim face as he 
looked into the possibilities which Tommy Carteret 
slurred over with those reddened cheeks. Here was a 
man devil-ridden, indeed! 

“But the doctor-men!” he said. “Surely you have 
had advice. Can they offer no explanation? Can 
they do nothing for you ?” 

“Nothing,” said Tommy. “I went to Poresi in 
Rome. He is among the great, I believe — and he felt 
of the wound in my head and asked a thousand silly 
questions, and looked wise and said, ‘Time and change 
of scene.’ Time and change of scene, indeed! He 
wanted me to consult some man in Paris — some 
man with a Scotch name which I have forgotten — 
McPherson or McKenzie, or something of the sort.” 

The Earl nodded. 

“Sir Gavin McKenzie,” said he. “He is an old 
friend of mine. He is the foremost — alienist in Europe, 
I should think. I am going to Paris to-morrow. I 
wish you would come with me and see McKenzie. 
It may be of no use, but one cannot afford to miss a 
chance.” 

Tommy shook his head. 

“I have no confidence in that sort of thing,” said 


236 


TOMMY CARTERET 


he. ‘‘ If ever I had, at first, I have lost it. If I could 
be persuaded, convinced that the thing is within me, 
that it is an obsession — ^illusion, I should do all in my 
power to seek a cure, but — one grows into queer 
beliefs, I expect, when circumstances are extraordinary 
enough. I have come to believe that the woman is really 
here among us — ^visible, of course, only to me. That 
may be a mad belief, but I cannot rid myself of it. 
I will go with you to Paris to-morrow, if you like, for 
I was thinking of going before I met you, but — I look 
forward to no relief from your McKenzie.*’ He smoked 
for a little time in silence, then rose with a sigh. 

‘T’ll go to my bed, I think,” said he. “It is late. 
Doubtless you’re fagged from your journey, too. I 
mustn’t keep you up.” 

If the Earl had seen his face just then I think he 
would have urged him to remain, for Tommy’s face 
showed reluctance and dread as plainly as such may 
be shown, but the Earl was moodily staring across the 
room under his grey brows, and did not notice. 

“As you like,” he said, when the other rose. “I 
shall be glad to have you for a travelling companion, 
anyhow. We’ll talk about McKenzie another time. 
There must be some way out of this terrible state of 
yours, and if any one can find it McKenzie can. 
Good night! I — I am more sorry than I can say to 

find you hag-ridden in this fashion. I wish Ah, 

well, good night, lad! We’ll talk it over again.” And 
Tommy, after another moment of hesitation, went 
slowly out, and, with lagging, heavy steps, down the 
corridor to his own door. 

He drew a little breath of relief as he turned on 
the electric lights in his room and found no one there, 
but the relief was short of life, for he heard the woman 


MARIANA KEEPS HER WORD 237 


stirring about in the room beyond, and singing softly 
to herself a song he had come to hate — the little cheap 
song she had sung, under her breath, that evening when 
she sat at her doorstep as the sun was sinking beyond the 
Great Bottom and he had come upon her unawares. 
She often sang it now, possibly because she knew it 
annoyed Tommy. 

I fancy that if you could have gone into the room 
with Tommy this evening you would have seen, all in 
a moment, the whole pitiful horror of the life he led. 
You would have seen that first quick glance of his about 
the room as the lights flooded it, the subsequent breath 
of relief, the lowered eyebrows as he listened and heard 
something you could not hear, in the room beyond. 
You would have seen, in place of the elaborate and 
architectural structure common to Continental hotel 
bedrooms, a narrow little cot bed, very evidently set 
there by order, and you would have wondered about it 
until, all at once, the explanation would have burst 
upon you and you would have turned on poor Tommy 
a face of amazed pity. You would have seen him 
instinctively turn toward the closed door to the other 
room and make sure that the bolt was shot — as if bars 
or bolts could prevent that which waited on the other 
side from coming to him! And then, if you should 
wait long enough — but I doubt your courage to do it — 
you would see something else, though you would see 
and hear only one side of it, Tommy^s side, as one sees 
and hears only one side of a telephone conversation. 

Tommy threw open one of the windows and stepped 
out into its tiny embrasure with his back to the lighted 
room. It was a still night, but a bit of cool breeze bore 
in from the lake, and he sniffed it gratefully. Down 
below him the gardens stretched black and silent. The 


238 


TOMMY CARTERET 


glow from the hotel porch fell upon the near-by shrubs 
and trees in odd spots of grey, and, to one side, a little 
yellow spark moved slowly up and down one of the 
paths. Some man was walking there with a lighted 
cigar between his lips. Out beyond, the broad quay 
was set with electric lights, and small groups of people 
passed, now and then, laughing and chattering. Once 
a woman^s voice, a sweet, soft contralto, broke into a 
snatch of song — Gastaldon^s “ Musica Proxbita” : 

“ . . . Stringimi oh Cara, al tuo core ! 

Fami provar Vehhrezze delV amor.^^ 

I fancy I see poor Tommy’s lips twist into a wry 
smile. Uebhrezze dell* amor!” Would there ever be 
such for him? Small prospect of it, indeed! His 
eyes followed the red, port light of a little steamer which 
was creeping up the lake toward Lausanne, but he was 
thinking of his strange meeting with the old Earl, and 
of how much in keeping it was that the meeting should 
have taken place in just that theatrical manner. Any 
other man would have seen Lord Strope in the dining- 
room, quite in the ordinary fashion, or in the street, 
or would have learned from the hotel people that 
he was present, but Tommy’s gods would not have it 
so. It seemed that their taste ran to melodrama. It 
was not altogether unnatural that their meeting should 
have turned his thoughts back to the old life, beyond 
this year of horror, and to his old friends. He thought 
of his father and of Arabella Crowley and, for a little 
mad moment or two, as long as he dared, of Sibyl, and 
he thought of Jimmy Rogers and Livingstone, and — 
so he says — of me, and a great longing came over him 
to go home, a great engulfing wave of homesickness so 
strong that it brought tears to his long-dry eyes — 


MARIANA KEEPS HER WORD 239 


gripped him like a physical pain. It seemed to him, 
in that moment, that if he could only be at home again, 
among the good home things and the good familiar 
home people, this alien horror might slowly pale away. 
He could not imagine it existing there. I think that, 
for just an instant, he even felt a wild heart-throb of 
hope — though he had long since done with such — hope 
that there, in his home, he might be free once more — 
quite the old young Tommy who played with — Sibyl. 

“ I’ll go ! ” he said to himself. And he beat his hands 
softly upon the iron rail of his tiny balcony. “By 
Jove, I’ll go! I’ll write to Aunt Arabella to-night and 
tell her to be looking out for me, and to the governor 

that I’m Ah, no ! The governor’s not there, is he ? ” 

He had been in occasional correspondence with old 
Arabella. She knew all about the end of his stay in 
Egypt land, and about his recovery from his injuries, 
and his subsequent wanderings, and she had told him 
that old Tommy, not long after John Hartwell’s death, 
had set off, westward, for a tour of the world. “Run- 
ning away from responsibility as usual,” old Arabella 
had unkindly phrased it in her letter. 

“I’ll do it!” said young Tommy again as he turned 
back into the room. I’ll go to Paris to-morrow, with 
Strope. Yes, I’ll even see his doctor-man, to keep him 
quiet — ^but it’ll be only en route to New York. Home! 
Home, by Jove!” 

There were writing-things on a table in the room — 
the usual glazed portfolio with a few sheets of hotel 
paper, no envelopes, a splay-pointed pen, and violet 
ink. Tommy dragged up a chair and wrote his letter 
to Arabella Crowley. It was a long letter and full of 
unwonted expressions of affection. I fancy it must 
hugely have pleased old Arabella, I know I was 


240 


TOMMY CARTERET 


pleased with the briefer note he wrote to me when he 
had finished the other. 

‘‘That’s done! ” he said at last, pushing back his chair. 
“Now for a night’s sleep. That will be a long pull to- 
morrow, that journey to Paris ” And, just then, 

the locked and bolted door to the farther room opened 
slowly, despite lock and bolt, and Mariana Canfield 
stood in the opening, one hand on the knob. Tommy 
dropped back into his chair with a little gasping sob. 
It was a long, long fall from your new pinnacle of 
hope and eagerness, wasn’t it. Tommy ? And he 
seemed physically to shrink, to crumple, as it were, 
crouching there, looking up with eyes grown all at 
once sullen and bitter. 

The woman was in a long robe de chamhre, untidy 
and none too clean. Her hair was down in two great 
plaits which hung before her shoulders and reached 
nearly to her knees. She was handsome without 
doubt, but both her face and figure had already 
taken on too much weight and her face had 
coarsened. There were lines and contours in it, of 
temper and of ill nature and of other unpleasant 
things — ^lines that promised very ill for the future. A 
certain girlish sweetness which her face had borne at 
its best was wholly, irrevocably gone. 

“Was you aiming — ” she said, “didn’t you want — 
to come in to-night? I thought maybe as — maybe — 
It’s right — ^lonesome.” She smiled upon Tommy, a 
wheedling, pleading smile meant to allure, a smile that 
was almost a leer. 

The thing was horrible, but, more horrible still, it 
would seem that Tommy was used to it, for he only 
covered his eyes with his hands, crouching there in the 
chair, and said wearily: 



“And, just then, the locked and bolted door to the farther 
room opened slowly, despite lock and bolt “ 




MARIANA KEEPS HER WORD 241 


“No. No, thank you. Good night! I — ^hopeyou^ll 
sleep well.” 

And when the woman had gone, hesitating and 
looking back over her shoulder with that wheedling, 
pleading smile, he sat quite still — ^his hands over his 
face — for hour after hour, when he should have been 
in bed resting for that journey to Paris. 


CHAPTER XVII 


Sibyl Buckles on Her Armour 

Coming out of the Long Sang Ti shop where I had 
been looking at a Buddha, which I could not afford, I 
saw old Arabella Crowley being sedately borne up the 
Avenue behind her ancient and sheep-like bays. I 
shouted and waved my stick at Jenkins, who affected 
not to see, but old Arabella put up her eye-glasses at 
me and poked the little footman in the small of the 
back with her parasol. 

‘‘How do you do, William?” she said to me, when I 
had made my way out to her. “You are such a noisy 
young man! One day you will be arrested for making 
a disturbance in the streets. What are you so excited 
about ? ” 

“I have news, Aunt Arabella!” said I importantly. 
“ News you’ll be glad to hear, by Jove! ” Mrs. Crowley 
sniffed. 

“If it’s about Tommy Carteret,” said she, “you may 
spare the trouble to tell it. I know a great deal more 
about it than you do. I should like to hear of Tommy’s 
telling other people more than he would tell me. 
Fancy! — Get in! Get in! I want to talk to you. 
You are at times a very sensible young man.” She 
poked the little footman once more with her weapon. 

“Go out to the Park!” she said, “and drive about 
until I tell you to stop. And, for Heaven’s sake, don’t 
be run into by any of those wretched motor-cars,” 
242 


SIBYL AND HER ARMOUR 


243 


The footman touched his hat, but Jenkins’s high 
shoulders betrayed a whole octave of emotions from 
injured pride to lofty and tolerant disdain. 

‘^What do you know, William?” demanded old 
Arabella, when I had seated myself beside her in the 
victoria and the sheep - like bays had recommenced 
their somnolen amble. 

“ He’s coming back ! ” said I enthusiastically. “ Tom- 
my’s coming back! He wrote me from Geneva. He 
should be here in a week or two.” 

Mrs. Crowley allowed herself another disdainful 
sniff. 

might have known,” said she. ‘‘You are very 
behind-hand with your news. Tommy arrived in 
New York three days ago — on the very ship which 
brought his letters, indeed.” I am afraid I shouted 
aloud here, for Jenkins’s shoulders took on another 
inch in height, but Mrs. Crowley nodded sympa- 
thetically. 

“Of course he would have let you know,” she said 
handsomely, “you first of all, but he is very busy settling 
himself in the Hall, and I fancy he hadn’t time.” 

“Ah!” said I. “He’s going out to the Baychester 
place? I had fancied he would come to Washington 
Square — for a time, at least.” 

“I fancy he couldn’t — quite,” said old Arabella. “I 
fancy it would have — have — well, brought things back 
rather too much.” 

“Quite so!” said I. “I see, of course.” 

“I shall go out to my own place, there, at the end 
of this week,” she said. “Tommy and I are neigh- 
bours, you know. I hadn’t meant to go until next 
month, but — well ” 

“Quite so!” said I again. “He’ll need you, I’m 


244 


TOMMY CARTERET 


sure. Poor, old Tommy! Why, in Heaven’s name, 
should all this have come to Tommy, anyhow? It’s 
so beastly unfair! Why not to somebody who de- 
served it ? It — ^it makes me go quite hot when I think 
of it, sometimes. 

‘T can’t answer you that, William,” said Mrs. 
Crowley, bowing to some woman who passed just then. 
‘‘You’ll have to inquire elsewhere. ‘Sins of the 
father,’ I expect. Old Tommy had his fun. He’s 
had it for years and years. He was having it before 
you were born. And I expect some one had to pay. 
Of course” — ^she turned away a bit, and I may only 
have fancied that a tinge of colour came up over her 
cheeks — “of course the — ^the ones who — whelped him — 
with his fun, you know, they had to pay, but probably 
that wasn’t enough. So young Tommy had to pay the 
rest. No, it isn’t fair; not as we see things, anyhow. 
You must come out to Red Rose and spend a fortnight 
with me. Tommy’ll be glad of you, I know. Probably 
he wouldn’t dare to ask you to come to him at the Hall. 
He has some silly notion that every one who is near 
him suffers from what he calls his curse. We must 
cure him of that idea, at least. Whether we shall be 
able to cure him of the other thing remains to be seen.” 

“It’s very rum!” said I cautiously, “the other thing, 
you know. It’s quite a new sort of thing, I gather — 
not a — a spook at all, just a commonplace every-day 
member of the household — changes its clothes — ^talks 
rationally — ^grows older — all that. No night-walking 
spectre sort of person, at all!” 

“It’s a bit allegorical, isn’t it?” said old Arabella, 
thoughtfully, “when you think the whole thing out.” 
But this was a bit beyond me, and I didn’t try to think 
it out, I thought of something else, 


SIBYL AND HER ARMOUR 


245 


‘‘YouVe seen him, then?'’ I asked. 

“Oh, yes I” said Mrs. Crowley. “Yes, I've seen 
him several times." 

“How does he look?" I demanded. “Is he — 
changed? Has it affected him outwardly?" But 
Mrs. Crowley, after she had opened her mouth once 
to speak, closed it again as if nothing she could say 
would be of any avail, and a sort of fear, I thought, 
came over her face — a sort of dread. Evidently poor 
Tommy was changed — more than I had supposed he 
would be. 

“And that doctor -man?" I pressed her further, 
“that big alienist chap in Paris? McPherson! What 
did he say ? Did Tommy consult him, as Lord Strope 
wanted him to do ? " 

“ McKenzie I " said old Arabella. “ Oh, yes. Tommy 
went to him. Of course, McKenzie wished time to 
study the case. It was hardly fair to burst upon him 
with a story of that sort and expect an intelligent answer 
all in a moment. But he looked at Tommy's head, and 
asked him curious questions about how it had felt 
when he first regained consciousness, and afterward, 
and all that. It was not so very different from 
what the Roman doctor had said — ^not until the last, 
anyhow." 

“What do you mean?" I demanded. “Not until 
what last?" 

“Just as Tommy and Lord Strope were coming 
away," said Mrs. Crowley, “the doctor-man said: 

“‘Your cure will come — if at all — through another 
woman. I should advise you to fall in love.' Tommy 
laughed when he told me, but " 

I waited for her to finish her sentence, but she left 
it like that, and I did not press hev, Old Arabella’s 


246 


TOMMY CAKTERET 


ways are sometimes obscure. I changed the subject, 
quite. 

‘^How is Sibyl in these days?’’ I asked. ‘^One sees 
so little of her nowadays!” 

Mrs. Crowley turned to me with quite a jump. 

“Upon my word, William!” she cried, peering at 
me through her raised eye-glasses, “ upon my word, you 
are at times positively uncanny!” I do not know what 
she meant. As I have said, she was at times obscure. 

“Sibyl has been very quiet for some months, hasn’t 
she?” I went on. “I don’t think it’s right for that 
sort of girl to sit in her own shell and draw in her 
horns when people come near. She’s a public loss — as 
they say about the statesmen who die.” 

“That is very civil of you, William,” said old Ara- 
bella, nodding. “Yes, Sibyl has been very quiet. I 
think,” she said after a little pause, “I think I shall take 
her out to Red Rose with me next week.” And at last 
I saw, and, I hope, blushed a bit for shame over my 
dulness. 

“Do!” said I. “If anj^hing can help poor old 
Tommy, Sib can. I’m sure of that.” 

“You are at times a very sensible young man, 
William,” said Mrs. Crowley again, and after that we 
talked about other matters : my Buddha, which I could 
not afford, and a new jade altar set which old Arabella 
had bought at some collector’s auction sale, and, after an 
hour or two of this, Arabella set me down at the Uni- 
versity Club, where I expected to find Jimmy Rogers, 
and went on her way. 

She had meant to go home, I think, but, after a 
moment’s hesitation, she changed her mind and went 
back up the Avenue, turning into one of the side streets 
among the Sixties. The butler said that Mrs. Eliot 


SIBYL AND HER ARMOUR 


247 


was in the drawing-room with two or three callers. 
He thought that Miss Sibyl was upstairs. Arabella 
went into the drawing-room, where tea was being con- 
sumed and characters destroyed. She nodded to the 
callers, all of whom she knew, and asked them, in a 
perfunctory fashion, how they did. She kissed Mrs. 
Eliot, whom she disliked, on one ear, and refused tea. 

“No, thank you,” she said. “I won’t sit down. 
I came to see Sibyl on business. I’ll just go up to her 
if you don’t mind. Will you have Morris bring me a 
cup of tea and some of those yellow cakes — the creamy 
ones ? Thank you. Yes, it is a fine day, as days go. 
I have been driving in the Park with a young man. 
And now,” she added to herself as she laboured up the 
stairs, “you may talk that over if you like.” 

They did. 

She found Sibyl seated on the rug in the middle of 
her boudoir, flanked by a mountain of hats, which she 
was trying on with the aid of a long pier-glass. An 
emptied tea-cup and a plate of cakes stood near, 
and there was a box of Huyler’s sweets within easy 
reach. 

“Aunt Arabella, you’re a dear!” said Sibyl. “I’ll 
get up and kiss you in a moment. I think this blue one 
will do nicely. Aren’t you glad you haven’t red hair. 
Aunt Arabella? Think of the beautiful things I can’t 
wear because of it. One day I shall dye it bright 
yellow, or else black. It’s a great trial to me.” 

“If you’re fishing,” said Arabella Crowley, “you’re 
losing time and wasting words. I was never known 
to say anything civil to any one. That blue hat is not 
bad, though. Buy it by all means. I like the golden- 
brown one, too.” 

Sibyl rose from the rug and kissed her aunt with 


248 


TOMMY CARTERET 


some vehemence, for she was very fond of the grim old 
woman. 

‘‘You make out that you’re a dreadful bear!” she 
said, laughing, “but you’re not. You’re a dear. 
What have you been doing with yourself? I haven’t 
seen you for a week, nearly. Did you see mother as 
you came in ?” 

Old Arabella chuckled. 

“I did,” said she. “I went into the drawing-room 
for a moment to speak to her. Several women were 
there talking about another woman. They are now 
tearing me limb from limb because I said that I had been 
driving in the Park with a young man. We’re all great 
cats, Sibyl, all we women. I could repeat almost 
word for word what those people down stairs are 
saying about me just now.” 

Sibyl rang for her maid to take away the hats, 
and at that moment the butler came in with Mrs. 
Crowley’s tea. 

“Sib,” said old Arabella when the man had gone, 
“I want you to come out to Red Rose with me next 
week.” The girl turned back from the window, where 
she had been standing, with an exclamation of surprise. 

“Next week?” she said. “Are you going to open 
Red Rose next week? I thought you meant not to 
go out until July.” 

“ I’ve changed my mind,” said old Arabella. “ That’s 
a privilege I occasionally claim. Will you come?” 
she asked. 

“Why — yes,” said Sibyl slowly. “Yes, of course. 
I had made a few engagements for the latter part of the 
week, but they’re of no importance. Yes, I’ll come if 
you want me. Aunt Arabella.” 

“Of course it will be dull,” said Mrs. Crowley. 



“ She found Sibyl seated on the rug in the middle of her boudoir, 
flanked by a mountain of hats” 






SIBYL AND HER ARMOUR 


249 


‘‘There won’t be any gaiety, but if you want that you 
can come in town occasionally.” But the girl looked 
up with a little faint, tired smile and shook her head. 

“I don’t demand gaiety,” said she. ‘T haven’t 
been very gay myself, of late, have I?” She went to 
the window again and stood looking out into the street 
and over the near-by Avenue to the green trees of the 
Park beyond. 

“I think I shall like it in the country,” she said. 
“The early roses will be out, won’t they, and the 
larkspurs and pinks, and the wistaria and all? Yes, 
I think I shall like it. I’m — tired of town. Somehow 
it — seems not to amuse me very much, this year.” 

Then old Arabella took a quick breath, as it were of 
courage and resolution. “Of course,” said she, “we 
sha’n’t be quite alone. I shall ask two or three people — 
whomever you like, and — and there will be Tommy, at 
the Hall.” She tried to go on talking in an even, calm 
tone, but the words would not come. Her lips faltered 
and shook a bit and she stopped. 

Sibyl turned very slowly away from the window, 
with her hands half raised to her breast, and her face 
had gone perfectly white. It came to Mrs. Crowley 
swiftly that she had once seen a woman in a play do 
just that — turn very slowly about with half-raised 
arms and just such a white stricken face, but she was 
fiercely berating herself, within, for her stupidity in 
breaking the thing to Sibyl in this abrupt fashion, 
and she had no time for dramatic recollections. In- 
deed, in the midst of her self-anger, she was conscious 
of a very considerable surprise. It seemed that she 
had much underrated Sib’s interest in the lad. She 
had expected some astonishment, and perhaps a few 
blushes, but not this. 


250 


TOMMY CARTERET 


*‘Do you — mean,” said the girl in a sort of whisper, 
and her hands were at her breast now, and her eyes 
burning into old Arabella's eyes, ‘‘do you mean that — 
Tommy, young Tommy has come — back? Do you 
mean that he’s at the Hall ? ” 

“Yes, Sib,” said Mrs. Crowley soberly. “Yes, he 
has come back. Ah, child, child, come here to me! 
I didn’t know. Truly I didn’t know. It was brutal of 
me; If T’d^ — ^known, I’d have told you differently. 
I’m sorry.” Sibyl took a little faltering step toward 
her aunt, and another, then she ran, and dropped upon 
her knees and laid her head in old Arabella’s lap, and 
began to weep with great sobs. And old Arabella wept 
a bit too, stroking the girl’s hair and laying her withered 
cheek upon it, and murmuring words that were meant 
to soothe and comfort. “I am a stupid old fool, dear 
child!” she said, growing angry with herself all over 
again. “I haven’t the eyes of a bat. I don’t deserve 
to be called a woman at all.” And that was the best 
thing she could have said, for Sibyl sat up on her 
knees, indignant through tears, and raged at her aunt 
for daring to make such statements about herself. 
All of which were cruel and false, etc. 

“But you might have told me before,” she re- 
proached, coming back to her own troubles. “Tommy 
here! Tommy! and — and I didn’t even know. How 
is he. Aunt Arabella ? How does he look ? Has he — 
changed terribly? Did they quite — quite cure him of 
his wounds at that dreadful hospital? Is he just the 
same Tommy he used to be ? Ah, no, he’ll never be 
that again, I suppose. Tell me, dearest! Why don’t 
you tell me? Don’t you see how I’m aching to 
know ? Can’t you put yourself in my place ? Why, 
it’s Tommy! my Tommy!” 


SIBYL AND HER ARMOUR 


251 


So then old Arabella Crowley set out, as gently as 
she might, to tell the girl of this new Tommy who had 
crept back to his home, hoping and despairing of 
hope that home would take his curse from him. She 
told her of that which followed Tommy, and winced 
as the girFs shoulder shook under her arm. And when 
she had quite finished, the girl raised her head, kneel- 
ing still beside the elder woman’s chair, and she stared 
for a long time out across the room to the window 
where the white curtains swayed in the breeze. There 
was pain in her face, and horror, too, a little, and great 
sorrow, but, as she sat there, the shock and bitterness 
and dread seemed to go, leaving in their place a cer- 
tain firmness, a certain sweet determination that old 
Arabella had never before seen in her. Something 
new had come into Sibyl’s face, something new 
and lovely and very good to see — the latent maternal, 
perhaps, the womanly longing to soothe and protect 
and comfort. Whatever it was, it was lovely and very 
good to see. 

“We’ll save him. Aunt Arabella,” she said. “Oh, 
I’m glad he came home! It’s our part now to help 
him, ours, who — ^love him. We’ll save him. I’m cer- 
tain of it, perfectly certain, somehow. Ah, I’m glad 
Tommy has come home!” 

Then presently, as the two sat talking, Sibyl’s 
mother, her callers having gone, came in upon them. 
She was a trivial woman with a weak mouth — a nega- 
tive type of woman. She and her daughter were al- 
most strangers. 

“Ah, here you are, Arabella!” she said. “I hoped 
you had not gone. You and Sibyl having a confer- 
ence ? ” 

“I have been asking Sibyl to come out and help me 


252 


TOMMY CARTERET 


open Red Rose next week,” said Arabella Crowley — 
“if you can spare her, that is. Of course I should 
have asked you too, Constance, but I know you would 
be bored. It will be dull beyond description.” 

Mrs. Eliot murmured something vaguely polite, but 
there was obvious relief in her tone. 

“ — If it weren’t for engagements, dear Arabella,” 
she finished. “Of course one has one’s duties. I’m 
sure dear Sibyl will enjoy being with you. Sometimes, 
do you know, I feel that you and Sibyl are almost 
closer friends than she and I are. Sometimes I almost 
feel jealous of you.” 

Old Arabella made a sound in her throat. She 
sometimes found Constance Eliot hard to bear, and 
she was neither a tolerant nor a very civil old woman. 

“I dare say we shall manage. Sib and I,” she said. 
“I shall keep her with me as long as I can, so don’t 
look for her immediately.” But within, she was say- 
ing, angrily, Almost closer friends, indeed! You 
don’t know one side of Sibyl. You’re not woman 
enough. Almost closer friends! Upon my word, I 
don’t understand how you could have mothered her. 
It’s absurd!” 

“Ah, now,” said Mrs. Eliot in her high, thin voice, 
“that will be very convenient, for I was wanting to go 
to the Blackwells’, on St. Regis, for a fortnight, but I 
didn’t wish to leave Sibyl alone. Now I shall be able 
to go. Ah, dear Arabella! you don’t know what it is 
to be left a widow with a child to care for. One must 
never think of one’s self.” 

I think old Arabella came as near to cursing, in- 
wardly, as a woman may. Outwardly, she only sniffed. 

“It has not worn upon you, Constance,” she ob- 
served. “It might have killed some women.” Mrs. 


SIBYL AND HER ARMOUR 


253 


Eliot looked at her sister-in-law sharply, as if she sus- 
pected a hidden sting, but she was hopelessly outclassed 
by old Arabella, and, in a vague way, knew it. She 
retreated now in what she considered good order. 

‘‘Yes,^’ she said, “you were fortunate — in a way, of 
course — ^to have had no children. Dear Sibyl has 
been all to you that a daughter could be with none of 
the responsibility. Ah, well, I must be dressing. I 
have to dine with the Bishop to-night. Good bye, 
Arabella! So sweet of you to have dear Sibyl at Red 
Rose! Good bye!” 

Arabella Crowley’s lips moved wickedly as the other 
woman left the room, but she only shook her head and 
sighed. Sibyl had gone over to the window again, as 
her mother came in, and stood there beating gently 
upon the glass with her finger-tips and staring out 
toward the green trees of the Park. 

“When do we start. Aunt, dearest?” she said, as old 
Arabella approached her. “Monday? — And this is 
only Friday? — ^Three whole days that poor Tommy 
is waiting and suffering and needing — us, and we not 
there! — Dear Tommy! — Aunt Arabella, tell me some- 
thing truly, truly! Have I — am I — do you think I’m 
— ^less — pretty or attractive or anything, than I used 
to be, a year ago ? Do you think he’ll think so*? Do 
you think he’ll remember that he — ^liked me on that 
last night, the night of the Devereuxs’ ball ? Do you ? 
— Oh, we shall save him. Aunt Arabella! I know we 
shall. Could any one — ^love Tommy as dearly as — 
we do, and not be strong to help him ? No, no! We’ll 
save him. And then — maybe — Oh, Aunt Arabella, 
who can tell? Maybe — maybe ” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


In the Rose-Gardens 

I DID not go to Red Rose. Tommy wanted me 
with him at the Hall. I found a letter awaiting me at 
my chambers when I went home from that drive in the 
Park with Arabella Crowley. It seemed good to see 
Tommy’s ugly, scrawling hand again. 

“ — I’d have come personally to ask you, Bill,” he 
said, ‘^but I’m very hard-driven with getting the Hall 
into habitable condition, and besides, you know, you’re 
never by any chance at home. It’s labour wasted; 
to go to your diggings. Come on Monday, there’s a 
good chap! Chuck up everything else. I really need 
you — ^but, look here. Bill! If your nerves aren’t good, 
don’t come. I’m apt to get on them frightfully if 
they’re tender. I’m not at all a cheerful beggar to be 
shut up with. Still, I need you. Come, if you think 
you can stand it. I’m asking Jimmy Rogers, too.” 
Jimmy/’ Rogers, too! Where was Arabella Crowley’s 
house-party to come from? She had meant to have 
Jimmy at Red Rose. 

Of course I replied that I would come. My nerves 
are good, and Tommy said he needed me — ^good old 
Tommy! And, besides, a man has his curiosity. I 
wanted to know more about this thing which had come 
to Tommy — ^study it at close range. It promised irt-, 
terest, I said to myself. 

I went out on Monday morning — I and my bags and 

254 


IN THE ROSE-GARDENS 


255 


boxes — in a motor. Tommy had been expecting me to 
come by train, and was not in the house to welcome 
me. Parkins was, however, and unbent the least bit 
in the world to say that Mr. Thomas would be glad of 
my arrival. It appeared that Mr. Thomas had gone 
down, a half-hour since, to the cove where the boats 
were kept. 

It was ignoble of me, but a man has his curiosity — 
I lowered myself to a discreet questioning of Parkins. 
I did it, I believe, in the guise of family friend. Parkins 
enacting the r6le of faithful retainer. How did he find 
young Mr. Thomas? One heard rumours. Parkins 
sighed and rolled his eyes. He made a deprecatory 
little gesture with his two hands. Altogether, it was 
quite like a bishop engaged in confirmation. 

One heard rumours, I persisted, of — should one say 
hallucination? Too bad, too bad in a lad so young I 
One supposed he was never, well — violent, out of his 
head? No? Oh, decidedly not, said the faithful 
Parkins’s gestures. He hadn’t by any chance become 
addicted to — drugs, things to make one sleep, to soothe 
one’s pain ? This, I fancy, was what I had been after. 
The notion had occurred to me that Tommy might, 
in those months of exile, have taken to something of 
this sort, and so brought on the present trouble. It 
was not an untenable hypothesis. But Parkins re- 
jected it with horror. 

*^Oh, no, sir! Nothing of the sort, sir, I do assure 
you! ” he declared. should know it if he took drugs. 
He couldn’t conceal it from me, sir. I am in his room 
as much as his valet. Beg pardon, sir. I’ll just see 
that that man makes you comfortable. Will you go 
up now or will you go down to Mr. Thomas, sir?” 

*T’ll go down to the shore, I think,” said I. “Thank 


256 


TOMMY CARTERET 


you, Parkins. I daresay we shall have Mr. Thomas 
right in a short time.’’ 

‘‘Yes, sir,” said Parkins. “Thank you, sir.” And 
I went down, across the gardens and the broad stretch 
of turf beyond, to the little cove, where I found Tommy, 
in grey flannels and a panama hat, throwing sticks into 
the water for the amusement of an Irish pup. He 
heard me coming, and sprang up the bank with a wel- 
coming shout. 

“By Jove, Bill!” he cried, pumping at my hands, 
“it’s good to see you again! You grow uglier month 
by month, but you’re an archangel to come out here 
into the wilderness to cheer me up.” 

“You’re no such blanked beauty yourself!” said I, 
grinning upon him affectionately, “but I’d rather see 
you than a heap of other people. You’re a fraud. 
Tommy! You’re a fakir! You look as fit as I 
do.” Indeed, any surprise I may have felt was at 
his perfectly natural appearance. I had dreaded 
meeting him, for I had expected a gaunt and 
haunted wreck of a man — I saw it, later, though not 
in the extreme I had feared, for I found that there 
were two Tommys — one who, by some Herculean ef- 
fort, thrust his troubles from him, for hours together, 
and harked back to boyhood; the other a hag-ridden 
man, hollow of eye, stern of jaw, fresh from some new 
scene with that which he alone saw and heard. I 
learned that the two Tommys could change places in 
an hour — nay, sometimes in a moment, for, once or 
twice, I saw the thing done, and I shall never forget. 

“Jimmy Rogers turned up yet?” I asked. 

“No,” said Tommy. “Unless Jimmy has changed 
his spots, he will turn up not when he is expected, but at 
some other quite different time, and that time only 


IN THE ROSE-GARDENS 


257 


God and Jimmy can place. There are a great many 
irresponsible people about, but Jimmy Rogers is in a 
class of his own — hors concours. Oh, did old Parky 
show you your quarters?” 

“No,” said I. “I came straight down here. Come 
along and show me them yourself. You shall sit on 
the edge of my bed while I show you our latest novelties 
in shirts.” 

“Right, oh!” said Tommy, but halted abruptly, 
and I saw a little swift pallor cross his face. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “What’s the good? 
You’re so jolly active. Bill! Wait until luncheon time. 
There’s no hurry.” 

“No, there’s no hurry!” I agreed, watching his face. 
Poor old Tommy! afraid of his own house! Afraid 
of what lurked, hiding, there, ready to fasten upon him 
as he came near. 

“It’s not bad, down here, you know,” he said, as if 
he felt that apology was necessary. “Look at that 
hazy light out over the Sound! The water’s pure 
silver.” 

“Quite so!” said I. “Arabella Crowley come out 
to Red Rose yet?” 

“A couple of hours ago,” said Tommy. “She came 
— ^they came — in a motor. Sib and Aunt Arabella.” 
Was there a quick flush on Tommy’s cheeks? “I 
saw them as they passed that bend in the road beyond 
my greenhouses. They were all covered up by veils 
and things, but I’d know — Sib anywhere, in an^hing. 
Green, it was!” he said, obscurely. I take it he meant 
Sibyl’s motoring veil. “I say. Bill!” He turned, 
lying on his elbows, and looked at me. 

“Say it!” said I. 

“I say, you know,” said Tommy. “Have you seen 


258 


TOMMY CARTERET 


much of her this winter — this past year? Is she just 
as — ^just as — just like — always, you know? Is she 
as — pretty and — beautiful and all that, you know— 
and sweet, you know?” 

‘"Aunt Arabella?” said I. I think Tommy was on 
the point of being rude about Arabella, but he checked 
himself. 

‘T meant Sibyl,” he said. 

‘^Sibyl’s been rather quiet this year. Tommy,” said 
I. “She’s been rather a hermit. None of us has 
seen much of her.” 

“Aah!” said Tommy, slowly. “Has she, though?” 
he said, and fell into a little fit of silence, looking out 
over the Sound. 

“I’m sorry for that,” he said* after a long time. It 
was as if he spoke to himself. “I’m — sorry. It 
sounds as if she hadn’t been happy. I — shouldn’t 
like to think of Sib — ^unhappy. Good God, no I 

I’d — why, I’d ” He halted in the middle 

of his sentence, and again fell silent, and there 
was nothing more to be had out of him that 
morning. 

We lunched in a certain little open, rustic pavilion, 
which stands on a knoll above the cove where the boats 
lie. Jimmy Rogers had not turned up, and the table 
was set for two. It was during this luncheon and for 
the hour or so thereafter that Tommy told me much 
of what had taken place in that exile of his, and of the 
strange things which had occurred since. He went 
into detail over it — ^indeed, I think it was a sort of re- 
lief to him to talk. He had been so long alone. Such 
horrors had been shut up within him. It is from what 
he told me on this day, supplemented by two or three 
long talks afterward, and by such evidence as I have 


IN THE ROSE-GARDENS 


259 


got from half a dozen other people, that I have been 
able to put together his story. 

“And I'm telling you all this, Bill," he concluded, 
“because — ^well, partly because I think it's a relief to 
have it out, but chiefly because I want you to under- 
stand when you see me — as you will, from time to time 
— acting like a bally madman. I want you to understand 
what I've been through and how the thing has grown 
to be what it is now. You'll see me do some very odd 
things, and, sometimes, I sha'n't be fit to speak to. 
Just — think it over a bit when you're on the point of 
chucking me altogether, and you'll make allowance." 

“No danger of my chucking you. Tommy," said I. 
But Tommy shook his head. 

“You haven't had a chance yet," said he. “Wait 
a bit." 

Then we lighted our pipes and set out for a stroll 
about the place. The Hall has plenty of land about 
it — ^gardens and lawns and orchards, and an acre or 
two of untouched wood. The house itself faces the 
Sound, with a hundred yards of green lawn sloping 
down to the water's edge, but eastward the rose- 
gardens, hedged and stone-walled against the wind, 
stretch across to the boundary where old Arabella 
Crowley's Red Rose property begins. 

“I expect we ought to go over and pay our respects 
to Aunt Arabella," I said, as we tramped along a gravel 
path between the rows of early roses. 

“Ye-es!" said Tommy, slowly. “Yes, I — we'll go 
over this evening, when Jimmy comes, if he ever does. 
No hurry, you know." I must have stared at him a 
bit, for he turned away with some show of embarrass- 
ment and began pulling a rose-bush about. It did not 
occur to me until afterward that he might be, in a way. 


260 


TOMMY CARTERET 


dreading his first meeting with Sibyl. His parting 
with her on that night at the Devereuxs’ ball, a year 
ago, must have been vivid in his mind, and, with it 
the miserable sense of their altered footing now. Yes, 
I understood well enough, afterward, but at the mo- 
ment I was puzzled. 

I did not notice that, in his wholly unnecessary at- 
tention to the rose-bush, he had dropped behind, until 
I turned the corner into another little alley, sweet and 
fragrant like the first, and found that I was alone. I 
was on the point of going back, or of calling out to him, 
when I caught sight of old Arabella Crowley and Sibyl 
Eliot approaching down my path. Then, I am proud 
to state, I acted with almost human tact. I hurried 
on to meet them, and had my greetings over before they 
could ask about Tommy. 

‘‘There’s a new cat-boat down in the cove,” said I. 
“Don’t you want to come and see it? It looks a very 
proper boat — as cat-boats go.” Then I pretended to 
bethink myself. 

“Oh — ^Tommy’s just back there, among the roses,” 
I said. “ Have you seen him yet. Sib ? Catch him up 
and bring him along. Aunt Arabella and I will go on 
ahead.” 

“Ye-es, oh, yes!” said Sibyl, slowly, very much as 
Tommy had said it. “Yes, very well. Just down this 
path, is he ? ” She hesitated a moment, but I took old 
Arabella firmly by the arm and led her away. 

“Just down that path to the left!’’ I called back to 
Sibyl. 

“You have your moments, William,” said old Ara- 
bella, patting my hand. “You have your moments.” 

Now Tommy, having made a mess of the rose-bush, 
and discovering, all at once, that he had been left alone, 


IN THE ROSE-GARDENS 


261 


sang out my name and started to catch me up, but, as 
he started, one appeared at the end of his little alley 
whom he had not expected — one in white with the after- 
noon sun upon her hair and face. 

‘‘Sib I Sib!’’ cried Tommy, in a great voice, and 
made as if he would run to her, but instead he drew 
back, shaking, and his hands went up over his face. 

“Unclean, Sib!” he said in a sort of groan. “Un- 
clean! Unclean!” as lepers used to say. But, since 
he would not go to her, Sibyl ran to him, and caught 
his hands away from his face, and held them fast in 
hers, against her breast, and she cried out upon him 
fiercely. 

“Oh, Tommy!” she cried, “how dare you? How 
dare you? Ah, no. Tommy! No!” And she began 
a little, queer, sobbing laugh, staring up into his face. 

“Oh, Sib!” said poor Tommy, shaking before her, 
“I’m cursed, hag-ridden, mad — or something worse. 
I mustn’t touch you. Sib, for every one I touch is cursed 
along with me, horribly. Not you, too. Sib! Not 
you, too! I couldn’t bear that.” 

“Oh, hush. Tommy, dear!” said Sibyl, holding his 
hands fast in hers. “You mustn’t say such things 
or I shall think you’re mad. Listen, Tommy! You 
did a fine thing a year ago — oh, a splendidly fine 
thing! — I wonder if you ever knew how splendid I 
thought that was of you — and, because of it, you’ve 
suffered more dreadfully than any man I ever knew 
or heard of, but you’re not going to suffer any more. 
I’m going to — ^we’re going to have you your old self 
again shortly. Why, that’s what we’re for! You’ve 
come back to us, dear Tommy, and we’re going to 
cure you of this— this thing that’s making you suffer. 
Come and talk to me somewhere. Is there a seat in 


262 


TOMMY CARTERET 


your rose-garden? Bill and Aunt Arabella have gone 
down to look at the cat-boat. Is there a cat-boat, 
Tommy, or was that just a nice lie of Bill’s ? Bill is a 
dear — sort of — ^but not so dear as you. Take me some- 
where where we can talk.” 

Now, at the northern end of the rose-garden there 
is a high brick wall, grown over with ivy, and against 
this wall stone benches are set at intervals. They 
are overgrown with ivy, too, but that makes them the 
more comfortable. Tommy Carteret led Sibyl to one 
of these, and they sat down there together. It was 
shady and still and very odorous of the roses. A bee 
droned past them from time to time, a crow called 
monotonously from a field somewhere out of sight, 
and down in the greenhouses at the foot of the gar- 
den some one was hammering, driving nails. It was 
oddly like the sound of a horse’s shod hoofs trotting 
over asphalt. 

“Shut your eyes. Tommy!” said Sibyl. “Of what 
does the scent of those roses remind you — the roses 
and I, and that hammering like a horse’s hoofs?” 

“The Devereuxs’ roof-garden, a year ago,” said 
Tommy. “Oh, Sib, I’d rather not have remembered 
— as if I didn’t always remember!” 

“Do you, Tommy?” she asked gently, and leaned 
her head back against the ivied wall, closing her 
eyes. “Do you truly? Why, so do I! I’ve never 
forgotten, either. We were so — pleased with each 
other, that night, weren’t we? It — wasn’t quite the 
sort of thing we’d felt before. It was something a 
bit — ^new.” 

“Yes, yes,” said Tommy Carteret; “I went home in 
a sort of whirl, as if I were drunk. I walked all the 
way down to Washington Square, and I’m not a bit 


IN THE ROSE-GARDENS 


263 


certain that I didn’t shout and sing. I was to have — 
to have come to you the next day.” 

“Yes!” said Sibyl, under her breath, and her lips 
trembled, if Tommy had but looked at them. 

. “Oh, Sib!” he cried, very bitterly, “I’ve come to 
you at last, but look at me! Look at me!” And 
Sibyl moved closer to him on the stone bench, catching 
his hands in hers with a little low cry of sympathy and 
tenderness. 

“Yes, Tommy, dear!” said she. “I know, I know. 
You’re not the same Tommy who went away from me 
that night with promises to come the next day. That 
was a lad — ah, but a sweet lad. Tommy! — a lad to 
love! You’re not that lad, now; you’re a man that’s 
known pain and bitterness and solitude and despair 
greater than I can even imagine. I know, I know.” 

“And therefore. Sib,” said he, “avoid me! I beg 
you, avoid me. Shun me as you’d shun disease, for 
I bring sorrow wherever I go. I blight, Sibyl! I cast 
a shadow that never lifts. Shun me if you’d save your 
happiness.” 

“You hurt me. Tommy, dear,” said she. “Those 
things aren’t true; but if they were, if they were a thou- 
sand times more dreadful than you say, I should risk 
them if I thought I could help. What am I for. Tommy, 
but to help?” 

“For everything else that’s beautiful!” cried Tommy 
Carteret, and hid his face with his hands. “To be 
loved. Sib, worshipped, cared for, set on high, shel- 
tered from every evil!” 

“Why now,” said she, with a little low laugh — 
“now. Tommy, you make me believe that there’s lad 
in you still. Do you know no more of women than 
that? A woman doesn’t want to be worshipped and 


264 


TOMMY CARTERET 


set on high. Didn’t you know? It’s so lonely and 
uncomfortable away up there! She wants to be held 
close, Tommy — kissed and comforted like a woman, 
not a goddess. But oh, more than anything else, she 
wants to comfort — I thought you knew that — she wants 
to soothe and help and mother. If there are wounds, 
she wants to bind them. It’s so much better than 
sitting above an altar!” 

Tommy’s voice shook. 

“You’re sweeter,” he said, “dearer, lovelier than I 
knew any woman might be. You’re beyond any words, 
Sibyl. Words are so poor and cheap! They seem to 
me, just now, very silly things, with no strength or 
meaning. That’s because I need them so. Oh, 
Sibyl, you’re — I cannot say what you are. But you 
don’t understand.” 

“Oh, yes. Tommy, dear!” said she. “I under- 
stand everything. If I didn’t, do you think I’d — I’d 
speak as I have spoken? I’m not such a dreadfully 
forward young person as all that!’’ 

But Tommy stared into her eyes. 

“You — ^know,” he said in a half-whisper, “what — 
what haunts me? You know that I — that I’m fol- 
lowed wherever I go?” 

“Yes,” said Sibyl, '‘yes, I know. We’ll save you 
from — ^it, yet. Tommy, I know we shall.” 

Then for a little time they were silent, looking into 
each other’s eyes; Tommy, I know, thinking how 
lovely she was, how unspeakably exquisite; and Sib, 
I fancy, mourning over Tommy’s thin cheeks and 
tragic eyes and those lines which made his mouth so 
bitter in expression. No, this wasn’t the Tommy 
who had said good night to her at the Devereuxs’ 
dance. What was it he had said at the very last? 


IN THE ROSE-GARDENS 


265 


And as if her thoughts called to him aloud, he cried 
to her again: 

‘‘Oh, Sib, Sib! You’re so very beautiful!” 

Sibyl clasped her hands together with a swift little 
breath of delight. 

“You remember?” said she. “You remember. 
Tommy?” 

“How should I forget?” he demanded. “Have 
you grown less beautiful ? No, more. Sib, more ! How 
should I forget?” 

“Will you tell me something?” she asked, as if a 
thought had come to her suddenly. “What did you 
do with the picture I sent — Aunt Arabella sent to you 
down in that — dreadful place?” 

“I put it in a frame,” said he, “a frame made like 
a Japanese temple gate. And I hung it on the wall 
over a table where I sat to write or read. I think I 
prayed to it. Then — after a long time — I tore it up 
when something had — ^when I dared not see it there 
any longer. It was rather like murder, tearing it so, 
but I had to do it.” 

The shade had come over his face again, and once 
more he sat silent for a little space, staring beyond 
her, out over the garden, with gloomy, bitter eyes. 
The girl could have wept over him but that there are 
no tears for such depths as this. Tears are for lighter 
woes. 

But presently, as she sat watching his face, she saw 
his eyes all at once sharpen and focus themselves as 
upon some one entering the gardens from the side 
nearest the house, and move slowly, as if following the 
newcomer’s approach. 

“Aunt Arabella and Bill coming?” she asked, and 
turned her head with a smile to look. There was no 


266 


TOMMY CARTERET 


one in sight, and she looked back at Tommy with a 
puzzled frown. Clearly he was watching some one — 
some one who moved. Then in another instant she 
understood and cried out sharply: 

“Tommy I Tommy!” moving closer to him on the 
stone bench, and catching at his arm with her two 
hands. 

“You — frighten me. Tommy!” she cried. “Please, 
please! I — think I’m afraid. Please, Tommy, don’t 
—look so!” 

Tommy turned to her with a start, and saw that she 
was trembling and that the colour had left her cheeks. 
“It’s nothing. Sib!” said he. “Don’t be — frightened. 
It’s — nothing at all. Will you let me go down the 
path a little way, for a moment? I shall be back at 
once.” She caught at his arm again with a cry, as he 
rose, but he went quickly down the garden-path until 
he was almost out of earshot, and halted there with 
his back to her. She was shaking still in that instinc- 
tive panic one feels before anything supernatural, and 
she covered her eyes with her hands, but uncovered 
them almost at once. Tommy was speaking to empty 
air in a low, angry voice and with quick, vigorous nods 
of his head. She heard him pause once or twice, as 
if that space to which he spoke had spoken in return, 
and once she saw, in the clear, bright sunlight, a sud- 
den flush spread over his cheeks and subside again. 
Then he ceased speaking, and she saw him watch that 
thing of invisible air move away — ^saw his head turn 
as he watched it go along the path to the house. Pres- 
ently he wheeled once more and returned to the old 
stone bench. 

Sibyl dropped her face into her hands and fell into 
a fit of nervous sobbing. 


IN THE ROSE-GARDENS 


267 


“You see, Sib!” said Tommy Carteret in his tired, 
bitter voice — “you seel Avoid me, Sibyl! Shun me 
as you’d shun disease. I cast a shadow that never 
lifts. Shun me if you’d save your happiness!” 

But that brought her head up in an instant, and she 
caught him by the shoulders with her two hands. 

“Never, Tommy!” she cried. “Never! God 
knows if there be happiness in it or sorrow, but I’ll 
never give you up. Oh, Tommy, there shall be 
happiness! We’ll save you yet. I promise you! I 
promise you I There shall be happiness.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


Those Moving Eyes of Tommy’s 

Arabella Crowley asked us to dine at Red Rose 
that evening, but Tommy declined. 

‘‘ Jimmy Rogers may turn up at any hour,” he said. 
‘^Let us come to-morrow or some other day.” And 
Jimmy did turn up, just as Tommy and I were think- 
ing of going in to dress for dinner. He arrived in a 
large, angry, red motor-car with Gerald Livingstone’s 
bulldog, Marcus Aurelius, on the seat beside him, 
barking defiance to all the world. There was also a 
chauffeur buried under luggage in the rear, but Jimmy 
Rogers explained that the chauffeur was only for the 
look of the thing, and that Marcus Aurelius was to 
drive the motor back to town. 

“Jerry will be so pleased,” he said, “to find that the 
dog can be useful; save him no end of money. I’ve 
taught him a heap of things since Jerry’s been away. 
He can drink beer now and almost smoke a pipe, and 
he sleeps in Jerry’s blue silk pajamas every night. 
Fine dog, what? You don’t happen to have a cat 
about, do you? He has worked up an appetite on 
the way down.” 

Tommy laughed, and it was more like his old laugh 
than anything I had yet heard from him. 

“By Jove, Jimmy!” said he, “this is like old days. 
You don’t change, do you? Are you ever going to 
grow up?” 


268 


THOSE MOVING EYES OF TOMMY^S 269 


Jimmy Rogers turned a gloomy and affronted coun- 
tenance to Marcus Aurelius. 

“You see,” he said, “he thinks I’m funny. Every- 
body thinks I’m funny. No one ever took me seri- 
ously in all my life. Ah, well, just you wait! You 
wait till he sees you driving this motor-car. Then, 
maybe, he’ll begin to appreciate the fact that I am a 
gentleman of parts. You may now go, Marcus. This 
person has no cats for you — I see it in his face.” 

Marcus Aurelius took the steering-wheel firmly in 
his teeth, and, with more aid from the chauffeur than 
most gentlemen are willing to accept, drove the car 
out into the road and disappeared. We presently 
heard him barking joyously from a cloud of dust, and 
decided that the chauffeur was now doing it all, though 
Jimmy Rogers stoutly insisted that the dog could both 
bark and steer at one and the same time. 

“Which is a jolly lot more than either of you can do I ” 
he said crushingly. 

An hour later, when we sat down for dinner, Jimmy 
Rogers noticed that there was a fourth chair, placed 
opposite Tommy, down at the lower end of the long 
table. 

“Who’s that for?” he demanded promptly. “I 
thought only Bill and I were to be here with you?” 
The same question had been on the tip of my own 
tongue, but I had thought just in time. I kicked at 
Jimmy Rogers’s shins under the table, and he turned 
upon me a bewildered scowl, but Tommy only smiled. 
I think it was the saddest smile I have ever seen. 

“Oh, yes, there’s another,” said he. “There’s al- 
ways another. Humour the whimsies of the mad, 
Jimmy. It does no harm. I’m — sorry about the 
chair, but — well, if it weren’t there there’d only be a 


270 


TOMMY CARTERET 


row and a — and a nasty scene. You’ll grow used to 
— ^her, presently, and not mind. At least, I hope so.” 

“ Oh, yes, yes ! ” said Jimmy Rogers hastily. “ Quite 
so! I — ^forgot, you know,” and gave me a dismayed 
glance across the table. 

Then Tommy said ‘‘Ah!” under his breath, and 
rose to his feet. His eyes were upon the door at 
the farther end of the room. At first I did not 
understand. Then I kicked Jimmy Rogers again 
and we both stood up. We saw Tommy’s eyes 
move slowly — as slowly as one would walk the 
length of that room — until they rested upon the chair 
at the other end of the table. Then he sat down again, 
and Jimmy and I dropped into our chairs. Jimmy 
Rogers’s face was white as paper, and as for me I 
know my heart was beating faster than any man’s 
heart should beat, and that the hair at the back of my 
head, over the collar, stirred, and the scalp felt oddly 
cold. It was Tommy’s eyes that did it, I think, those 
moving eyes which so obviously rested upon a moving 
body which was quite invisible to us. It was more 
gruesomely horrible than any words can describe. If 
Tommy had screamed, or shown terror in any way — 
fainted, even, as people seeing ghosts are popularly 
supposed to do — ^I am certain that neither Jimmy Rogers 
nor I should have been afraid. It was his perfectly 
quiet and composed recognition of another being in 
our midst that got on our nerves. It was many days 
before I could face this particular thing with any com- 
posure, and I think I never watched Tommy’s eyes 
move after something which I could not see without 
that quickened heart-beat and that cold stir at the 
back of my head. I once knew a dog which was 
haunted. In most respects it was a very ordinary dog 


THOSE MOVING EYES OF TOMMY’S 271 


of uncertain ancestry and mild disposition, but, when 
sitting quietly in the sun or crouching at rest beside 
one’s feet, its eyes followed the movements of some- 
thing which was, to the rest of the world, invisible. 
It was not a popular dog, and when it took to howling 
o’ nights, the man who owned it gave it a large dose 
of rat poison. I could not help thinking of this 
wretched animal when I saw poor Tommy Carteret’s 
eyes move from the door to that empty chair across 
the table and remain there. 

It would be wholly impossible to call that first din- 
ner of ours at the Hall a cheerful one. Heaven knows 
I did my best, but it was a poor best, and I think Jimmy 
Rogers played up to the best of his ability, but he was 
palpably nervous and unstrung. You must remem- 
ber that he had not been so well prepared for what was 
before him as had I. Tommy was, of course, the 
coolest of us all, but even to him, I am sure, the situ- 
ation was a painful one. He told me, long afterward, 
that more than once during the course of the dinner 
he heartily cursed himself for having dragged Jimmy 
and me into his haunted household, saying that it 
would have been a thousand times better to have stuck 
it out alone. 

I remember that he never addressed any remark to 
the empty chair across the table, only answered, as 
briefly as possible, when the thing there spoke to him. 
At the first of these answers, coming, as it happened 
to do, after a little interval of silence, Jimmy Rogers 
started nervously and almost cried out, and the young 
footman, who was giving me some vegetables at the 
time, began to shake and nearly dropped his dish. 
Only old Parkins’s face retained its wonted calm. 
Old Parkins, on duty, was emotion proof. 


272 


TOMMY CARTERET 


Toward the end of the meal, all three of us simply 
bolted what was put before us, and when Tommy 
suggested that we have our coffee out on the veranda, 
which looks seaward, I could have cheered, for the 
room had become horrible to me. I was like a fright- 
ened old woman peering into dark corners. 

On the broad veranda Jimmy Rogers and I dragged 
comfortable cane chairs up beside one of the little tea- 
tables and opened our cigarette-cases. Behind us, 
in the doorway, we heard Tommy’s voice in low con- 
versation. Then, after a moment, he paused beside 
our table. 

“Parkins will bring the coffee and things,” he said, 
and there was an odd embarrassment in his tone. 
“I’ll — if you don’t mind. I’ll just take a — a solitary 
turn or two down by the shore. I shall be with you 
presently.” He went away down the steps, and it 
was oddly as if he were walking beside somebody — 
something about his bearing, the half-turn of his body, 
perhaps, gave one that impression. We watched him 
go, and, after a bit, saw his head turn and shake, or 
nod, and knew that he was talking. 

Jimmy Rogers’s chair creaked as he sank back in it. 
I met his eyes, and we stared at each other very soberly 
for a minute or more, I should think. 

“Look here. Bill!” said Jimmy Rogers, presently, 
“am I a damned coward?” I reserved judgment. 

“I have fought through a portion of one war,” he 
said deliberately. “I have been in action for hours 
together. I have fought two duels in France and 
Austria — and they weren’t fake duels, either. I have 
knocked about rather more than most chaps ever do, 
and — ^well, look at that!” He held out toward me 
one of his hands, and the hand was shaking like a 


THOSE MOVING EYES OF TOMMY’S 273 


drunkard’s. I scowled at him uncomfortably, and 
shook my head. 

“It’s— a different sort of thing,” said I. “No, I 
don’t think you’re a coward, Jimmy. “It’s — differ- 
ent. I feel, myself, as if I should be afraid of the dark, 
to-night.” Jimmy Rogers shivered. 

“Don’t talk about the dark!” said he. 

The footman approached with the coffee things on 
a tray, and old Parkins followed with liqueurs. 

“What liqueur, Mr. Rogers, sir?” he asked. 

“Oh, damn!” said Jimmy Rogers, and sat up irri- 
tably. 

“Whiskey, Parkins!” he said. “Scotch whiskey 
in large quantities!” Parkins brought the decanter, 
and Jimmy Rogers filled his glass with a portion of 
scandalous size. I do not think I was far behind him. 
Then, when we had drunk, as eagerly as if we feared 
that Parkins would snatch the glasses from our lips, 
we sat back again in our chairs and watched the coffee 
boil up in the glass bulb of the machine. 

“I didn’t come here quite unprepared,” said Jimmy 
Rogers after a bit. “I knew something was wrong. 
I knew Tommy — well, saw things, but I didn’t know 
it would be like this. I expected he’d have fits of — 
fits like delirium tremens or something like that. I 
shouldn’t mind that, if it was good old Tommy, but 
— ^hang it, it’s his eyes!” he cried with a little return 
of anger. “I can’t stand his eyes moving about like 
that — following something I can’t see. I shall be see- 
ing it presently.” He poured himself more whiskey 
and drank it gloomily. 

“I expected to stay here a fortnight,” he said, as he 
set down the glass, “but I don’t know. I don’t know.” 

“You’re not going to desert Tommy?” I cried. 


274 


TOMMY CARTERET 


“You’re not going to run just when Tommy needs 
you? By Jove, I thought better of you than ” 

“Oh, chuck that!” said Jimmy Rogers crossly. 
“ Can’t I have a bit of a growl if I want to ? To tell 
you the truth. Bill, I’m ghastly afraid — and so are you, 
if only you’d be honest and admit it.” 

“I’m not denying it,” said I. “I am afraid, but I 
expect we shall become used to the thing, after a bit, 
and not mind. I expect we shall learn to take it as 
Tommy does, quite quietly. He isn’t afraid.” 

“No,” said Jimmy Rogers, slowly. “No, Tommy 
isn’t afraid. Do you know I fancy he’s too tired to be 
afraid of anything.” And afterward, when I thought 
it over, it occurred to me that this speech of Jimmy 
Rogers’ was the shrewdest thing I had ever heard 
him say. 

“And yet,” said I, “though it doesn’t frighten him 
— as the ordinary sort of ghost frightens the ordinary 
sort of man — still it’s wearing on him horribly. You*ve 
seen his face! That wasn’t all done down in his 
Egypt country. It’s this — this possession, this haunt- 
ing — ^whatever-you-like-to-call-it — ^that’s driving him 
mad.” 

“Driving him mad?” queried Jimmy Rogers oddly. 

“Oh, he’s not mad now,” said I. “He’s no more 
mad than you are. He merely sees something that 
you don’t — and hears it. There’s some sort of fourth 
dimension somewhere about, if you like, and Tommy 
sees into it. You can’t make him believe that this — 
woman doesn’t exist objectively. You can’t make 
him believe that the whole thing’s in his brain. Still 
he is not mad, you know.” 

“Of course it is all in his brain!” said Jimmy Rogers, 
staring at me through the dusk. There seemed to 


THOSE MOVING EYES OF TOMMY'S 275 


me to be some sort of half-question — half-appeal — ^in 
his tone. 

‘T don't know," said I. 'T suppose so— Oh, Lordl 
yes, of course! Still — hang it, the woman grows older. 
She says and does things Tommy has never thought 
of. She sees what's about her. She has grown fat 
since she — since she came. How should I know?" 

Jimmy Rogers reached for the decanter. 

“Fancy it!" he said in a hushed, half-frightened 
voice. “Just fancy having such a thing about! I 
expect the — I expect she^s just as real to him as we are!" 

“Of course she is!" said I. 

“Fancy it!" he said again. “Gad, I'd — I'd shirk 
it all. I'd shoot myself." He leaned forward in his 
chair, shaking his lighted cigarette at me. 

“Look here!" he said, “how's it all going to end? 
What reason have you — or I, or any one — for thinking 
that Tommy's ever going to be any better? This — 
thing, if I understand, doesn't grow less real to him as 
time goes on; it grows more so. What's to come of it 
all?" 

“Why, as to that," said I, “God knows — maybe. I 
don't. Our lookout, I take it, is to keep him as cheer- 
ful as we can — make things as pleasant and amusing as 
we can, and otherwise to sit tight and wait. Oh! that 
surgeon-alienist man in Paris, McPherson — McKenzie 
— whatever his name is " 

“McKenzie!" said Jimmy Rogers shortly. I opened 
my eyes. 

“ How did you happen to know ? " I demanded. 

“ I've lived in Paris, haven't I ? " said Jimmy Rogers. 
“I know McKenzie. He attended some one — a 
young girl whom I — a young girl who was — mad, but 
didn't know it." 


276 


TOMMY CARTERET 


“Well?” said 1. “Well?” 

“She died,” said Jimmy Rogers. “It wasn’t 
McKenzie’s fault. She found out that she was mad 
and — died. So I came away.” 

“Ah I” said I, remembering half-forgotten things 
I had once heard. Ah, well! we all have our little 
histories.” 

“What did you begin to say about McKenzie?” 
demanded Jimmy Rogers, presently. 

“Oh, yes!” said I. “This McKenzie chap said an 
odd thing to Tommy. It was after he’d been making 
a sort of an examination of him. He said : 

“‘If ever you’re cured, it will be through another 
woman.’ Odd, what?” 

“We’re not women,” said Jimmy Rogers. 

“No!” said I, “but Sibyl Eliot, over at Red Rose, 
is, isn’t she?” 

Jimmy Rogers sat up in his chair. 

“ Sibyl Eliot I ” he cried. “ Sibyl — you don’t mean 

That’s why she has kept so quiet this winter, then! 
Sib, of all people! Well, I’m damned! — Sibyl Eliot!” 
he said to himself again after a little pause. “I am 
damned!” he said, and retired into silence, shaking a 
bewildered head. 

Then Tommy came up from his stroll. He went 
directly to the open doors of the house and stood 
there an instant, with a final low -spoken word or 
two to that invisible presence, then turned back 
to where Jimmy Rogers and I sat beside our table 
in the gathering dark. It was not a hot evening, but 
I remember that Tommy pulled out a handkerchief 
and wiped his forehead before he dragged a chair u-p 
to the table. 

“Coffee cold?” he asked. 


THOSE MOVING EYES OF TOMMY’S 277 


“Afraid it is,” said I. “I let the lamp under the 
machine go out.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” said Tommy. “I didn’t really 
want any. Shove that decanter across, will you ?” 

He lighted a cigarette and smoked it half down, sit- 
ting back in his chair. Then he turned his wry, sad 
smile upon Jimmy Rogers. 

“Leaving us in the morning, Jimmy?” he inquired. 
Jimmy Rogers wriggled in his seat. 

“Not by a — not unless you turn me out!” he growled. 
“What the deuce d’you mean?” I thought Tommy 
drew a long breath, as it were of relief. 

“Nothing,” said he. “I — I was afraid you wouldn’t 
be able to stand it. That’s all. You hadn’t been so 
well prepared as Bill had. You’ve good sporting 
blood, Jimmy.” He threw away his cigarette and 
lighted another one. When a man lights a match and 
holds it to the end of a cigarette or a cigar, you get a 
very fair idea of the state of his nerves. Tommy’s, in 
these days, were habitually bad. As I had said to 
Jimmy Rogers, the thing was wearing on him horribly. 
The question was — so it seemed to me — ^how long 
would he be able to bear it ? 

“For the love of Heaven,” said he presently, “talk, 
talk! Talk about something cheerful. Tell me a 
funny story — any sort of story. Only, talk!^* 

We sat talking for an hour or two. Each of us did 
his best, I think. Then we went indoors and played 
pool — or played at it — ^for another hour. I fancy it was 
one or two o’clock when we finally climbed the stairs to 
our beds. Tommy had a certain scarab which he 
wished to show to Jimmy Rogers, and we stepped into 
his room for a moment, while he got it out, before 
going on down the corridor to our own quarters. 


278 


TOMMY CARTERET 


A little brass bed stood at one side of the room, as 
narrow as a steamship’s berth, and there was no other 
bed to be seen. I had been told of this dreadful feature 
of poor Tommy’s possession, and beyond the first start 
of surprise paid no attention, but I saw Jimmy Rogers 
staring at it curiously, and half an hour later, as I was 
about to turn off my lights for the night, he came into 
my room, pajama-clad and with a cigarette between 
his lips. 

“Look here!” he said, “did you notice that — that 
silly little bunk of Tommy’s? Proper railway berth. 
Tommy didn’t use to be such a Spartan. What’s it 
for?” 

“He’s afraid I” said I. “Poor devil, he’s afraid I” 

“Afraid of what ? ” demanded Jimmy Rogers, staring. 
So then I told him of that horrible scene which was 
nightly enacted, and Jimmy Rogers cursed aloud in 
sheer amazement. 

“I expect it’s going on now,” said I, “if one could be 
there to see.” 

“Good God!” said Jimmy Rogers softly. “But, I 
say, look here!” he cried after a moment, and raised 
his puzzled eyes to mine. “Look here, you know! I 
don’t quite see yet. I don’t quite see what he’s afraid 
of. If I understand the thing properly, the woman is 
visible and audible to him, but not — what do you call 
it ? — tangible. He can’t touch her, nor she him ? What ? 
He could put a hand through her, or walk through her 
just as if she were air. What’s he afraid of, then, at 
night? All he has to do is to shut his eyes, I should 
think. Don’t you see, you idiot? She^s not tangible 
to him” 

And then it was my turn to look puzzled. 

“Right you are!” said I, “Hanged if I see it, either! 


THOSE MOVING EYES OF TOMMY’S 279 


No, she’s not tangible, certainly. She has no actual 
substance, even to Tommy. Hanged if I see it I I 
know he’s afraid, horribly afraid, of something. What 
do you suppose he’s afraid of ? I must ask him about 
that. Anyhow, it’s rum, what?” 

“Rum?” said Jimmy Rogers with scorn, “Rum?” 
He went on to say that it was rum, but the manner of 
his saying it will not bear repetition. 


CHAPTER XX 


What Tommy Dreaded 

So, at Baychester by the Sound, we began our watch 
and ward of Tommy Carteret. I had almost said our 
fight for Tommy, but fight hardly expresses it, since 
at the first, at least, it was but a passive fight. Later it 
became militant enough, aggressive enough. Heaven 
knows, but in these first few weeks there seemed no 
way opened to us, no method made plain for going 
about anything radical. All that we could do to cheer 
him, to keep his body active, and his mind upon mat- 
ters far removed from his troubles, we did, and, I think, 
with some success. I do not think Tommy was desper- 
ately unhappy in these days. Indeed, for much of the 
time I think he was quite the reverse. He played golf 
and he played tennis. He swam and rode and sailed 
about in the cat-boat — though, as to this last, he had 
one day an unfortunate mishap. It seems that while 
three or four of us were in the boat, and Tommy at the 
tiller, she came aboard, and Tommy’s nerves gave way 
with a rush and he nearly upset us. After that he went 
out as a passenger. 

But though we could fill his days with healthy activ- 
ity, lead his thoughts afield — ^not far afield, eh. Sib? 
— yet remained that awful hour when, day and evening 
being done. Tommy mounted with laggard steps to his 
bedroom and one stood in an open doorway, leering 
invitation — calling, coaxing. And often, I know, there 
2S0 


WHAT TOMMY DREADED 


281 


followed upon this, more — pleadings, storms of vitu- 
peration, bursts of rage. Often, I fancy, she wept 
before him, used all the weapons a woman, at such a 
time, can forge. 

I am given to seeing events which interest me in vivid 
pictures. In Tommy Carteret’s life there are three 
pictures which stand out in strong, positive, pitiless 
tones, which will not fade or be forgotten. Of two of 
them I have already spoken. The first is of young 
Tommy standing at the window of the house in Wash- 
ington Square and staring out into the dawn. The 
second is of Tommy sitting alone by night in the cabin 
on Half-Breed Hill, nodding, nodding through the 
hours. And the third is this dreadful scene which went 
on nightly during. the time of which I am now writing — 
poor Tommy, with his hands over his eyes, crouching 
in a chair or against the wall, and before him that 
shadow in the guise of a sobbing, pleading woman. 

So nightly, as you see, the blocks we had so hopefully 
builded up during the day were cast down again, and 
there seemed no opening before us. I think we all 
despaired more than once — all, that is, save Sibyl. 
Sibyl, God bless her! would never, even for a moment, 
confess to hope weakened or heart cast down. I have 
known many brave women, and I believe that almost 
all women, when fighting or enduring for love’s sake, 
are braver than any man can be, but of all those whom 
I have known, Sibyl was, in these days, the bravest — 
came to each day’s battle with a pluckier smile, saw 
her work nightly undone with a more undaunted spirit. 
I like to think of the look of her beautiful face when, 
after I, coward that I was, had been confessing my 
despair of ever gaining headway, she would grip my 
arm with her two hands and shake it a bit and say: 


282 


TOMMY CARTERET 


“Never you give up hope, Bill; we’ll save him yet. I 
know we shall save him.” 

She and Tommy were together almost every day — 
alone together, I mean, for, of course, the two house- 
holds, Red Rose and the Hall, were practically one from 
morning until night, and all five of us were constantly 
together. But Tommy and Sibyl had a truly wonder- 
ful knack of disappearing, under the eyes of the mul- 
titude, as it were, and turning up again, two or three 
hours later, much pleased with themselves and with 
all the world. Hours of Paradise these must have been 
for Tommy. Sometimes the two would play a desul- 
tory round of golf — ^they always forgot their scores; 
sometimes they would go off for a long drive in one of 
the traps; but oftenest, I think, they found comfortable 
and secluded corners in Tommy’s rose-garden. None 
of the rest of us ever dared go there for fear of running 
upon them. And, curiously enough, the woman — the 
phantom, what you will — ^never, with possibly one or 
two exceptions, attempted to spy them out and make it 
uncomfortable for Tommy. I do not, even now, under- 
stand this. It would have been so decidedly “in char- 
acter” for her to do it. I can offer no explanation. It 
was so, that is all. 

I had, during these days — as I believe I have already 
said — further long talks with Tommy, two or three 
of them, on the subject of what had taken place during 
the past year and what was going on now. And in the 
first of these, I remember, I spoke to him on that mat- 
ter which Jimmy Rogers and I had discussed the first 
night at the Hall — ^that matter which had set us wonder- 
ing. I asked him, sans phrase, of what he was afraid — 
why he slept in that narrow little bed — ^what he dreaded 
beyond the present horror. At first I thought that 


WHAT TOMMY DREADED 


283 


Tommy would not answer me, for he flushed up, 
and turned his head away, and sat silent for some 
time. Then, at last, he turned to me with that half- 
embarrassed, deprecating little laugh of his. 

'' IVe a mind to say nothing at all,” he said. “You’ll 
only think I’m quite mad. Bill, madder than you thought 
before — quite hopelessly mad. You see, it’s like 
this ” And then again I thought I should get noth- 

ing out of him, for there he seemed to stick, and he 
twisted about in his chair — we were sitting on the 
seaward veranda — and scowled at his innocent pipe, 
and words seemed to desert him. 

“You see,” he said again, after a bit, “it’s like this. 
I — the thing has come to me, as you might say, by 
stages. Bill. At least, it seems so as I look back over it. 
It has gone on becoming more and more real — she has, 
you know — more human and all that. You and 
Jimmy can’t get yourselves into my place at all when 
you think of — ^her. To you she’s a sort of — of ghost, a 
sort of spook. She gives you chills, like a haunted 
house. I expect you instinctively think of her as wear- 
ing a sheet and moaning in dark corners. What ?” 

I had to laugh, for Tommy had hit it so well! We 
knew better, of course, Jimmy and I, but instinctively I 
think we both thought of the woman as appearing to 
Tommy just like that — a sheeted, terror-inspiring ghost. 
“Whereas,” said Tommy, “she’s — she’s exactly like 
one of you, you know. There’s nothing supernatural 
about her; she’s — so far as my eyes and ears can make 
out — ordinary flesh and blood. Well, now, the point’s 
here. I say she has been growing more and more real 
to me. Bill, but have you ever thought that there’s one 
last thing which hasn’t yet been reached?” 

“Touch!” said I. “Good God, Tommy, you’re not 


284 


TOMMY CARTERET 


afraid of that?” I needn’t have asked, for I saw his 
eyes just then, and they were full of an awful dread. 

‘‘Just that. Bill!” said he, nodding. “It’s the last 
step. We’ve taken all the others. Granted tangibility, 
she’d have me — she’d have me absolutely in her power 
— absolutely, do you understand?” 

“I understand only too well! ’’said I, “but it can’t be. 
Tommy! It’s too frightful, it’s too fiendish. It’s 
beyond words. Oh, it’s impossible, you know, impos- 
sible!” 

“Is anything impossible. Bill?” said he with a little 
sigh. “I think not. A year ago, you know, I should 
have said that a great lot of things were impossible. 
You can’t quite expect me to think the same now. If 
what I have been through is possible, if what I go through 
now, every day of the week, is possible, why not an 
added feature ? Why not a paltry increment in the way 
of an extra susceptibility? She has come back from 
beyond, as I suppose other people must have done, at 
other times. She has succeeded in breaking through 
my sense limitations to the extent of my seeing her, 
hearing her. Why not, in time, the last step? Why 
not. Bill?” And I think something grew cold inside 
me. Why not, indeed? Since the gods seemed to 
have picked upon poor Tommy for their sport, why set 
a limit? Who were we, after all, to say where their 
sport should cease — or when ? But the very hopeless- 
ness of the thing, the very sense of its being so far out 
of and above our hands, wakened in me a sort of 
childish, futile anger. 

“I tell you, Tommy,” I cried fiercely, “the thing’s 
impossible ! It is impossible, for all sorts of good, sound 
physical reasons. Granted that you see and hear this — 
this — I never know what to call her — this illusion, well 


WHAT TOMMY DREADED 


285 


and good! That’s possible enough of explanation in a 
purely subjective way. The whole matter is in your 
brain ” 

‘Ts it, Bill ?” said Tommy, with his tired smile. “Is 
it, though?” 

“It must be!” said I quite snappishly. “Anyhow, 
it can be. For argument’s sake, we’ll say so. But, my 
son, when you begin to endow your illusion with physical 
properties, tangible, objective qualities, you’ve quite a 
different thing of it. Lots of people have seen ghosts, 
and heard ’em, too, by Jove, but nobody ever touched 
one. Argue me out of that, if you can.” 

I regret to say that Tommy seemed not greatly 
impressed by this masterpiece of reason, nor even 
greatly interested in it. It had sounded very con- 
vincing to me. 

“ Of course there’s an important flaw in that as mere 
argument,” said Tommy, rubbing a weary hand across 
his eyes, “but even if there weren’t, even if it were 
impregnable, what of it. Bill ? What of it ? Am I one 
to be convinced by argument? There’s no reason, 
there’s no possibility, as you might say, in what I endure 
now, every day. Yet I endure it. It’s there, though 
reason says it can’t be. All in my brain? Bill, Bill! 
Can my brain compass a woman’s altering in appear- 
ance as time goes on, growing older and all that ? Can 
my brain carry on two sides of a conversation upon 
some topic I didn’t choose? Can my brain produce 
those scenes I have to go through every evening ? No, 
I think not.” 

There was nothing to say to this; I had no retort for 
him. He spoke quite truly; he was beyond argument. 
But I harked back to the original question. 

“And so that’s what you’re dreading!” said 1. 


286 


TOMMY CAETERET 


“That’s what you’re afraid of, this — this last step, as 
you call it.” 

“Daily, Bill,” said Tommy under his breath. 
“Daily!” 

“And you think,” I probed further, “that she^s — 
she’s trying for it? You think that’s what she’s after 
when she — ^that is, well, evenings, and all that, you 
know?” 

“That’s what she wants, I think,” said Tommy. 
“For the present, you see, she has only partial — what 
shall I say — control over me. Then she’d have me 
absolutely. Aye, that’s what she’s after, and I’m afraid. 
You don’t know what black, bitter, abiding fear is. It’s 
not like being frightened, for there’s no end to it. It’s 
like — why, I expect it’s like a man who knows he’s going 
blind, or a man who knows some fatal disease has got 
hold on him — almost. I’m not giving up hope alto- 
gether, you know, but I’m afraid. Bill. I’m afraid.” 

Later in the day, when Tommy and Sibyl were away 
somewhere together, I spoke of this conversation to old 
Arabella Crowley and Jimmy Rogers. I spoke very 
frankly, withholding nothing, for I often converse with 
Arabella quite as man to man. She is an old woman, 
and it is a compliment which rather pleases her. I 
remember, though, that Jimmy Rogers more than once 
turned a scandalised eye upon me, and an apprehensive 
one upon old Arabella. 

And, when I had finished, Arabella nodded slowly, 
looking grave. 

“I see,” she said. “I knew he was afraid of some- 
thing beyond the present trouble, but I didn’t know 
what. I have often wondered. What a thing! And 
they say that God is kind.” She nodded again pres- 
ently. 


WHAT TOMMY DREADED 


287 


“He was right, you know,’’ she said. “He is quite 
beyond argument. Argument is mere sound to him. 
And he was right, too, about the flaw in your reasoning, 
William. The added sense of touch need not make 
the — apparition, shall I say? — objective, substantial, 
because it would affect him only. Why not a deluded 
sense of touch, as well as of sight or of hearing ? Tommy 
knows that his woman is breaking physical laws all the 
while. He sees her open a door and come into the 
room. Well, you could prove to him that that door 
had not opened at all and he would believe you, but 
what good would it do ? He saw the woman come in. 
He saw the door open. Argument can’t reach that.” 

Then, for a long time, we sat silent, I think, Jimmy 
and I scowling hopelessly across at each other, and Mrs. 
Crowley busy with some absurd knitting. 

After a bit she spoke again. 

“Sibyl makes life bearable for him,” she said, “but 
this can’t go on forever. Things go either backward 
or forward. That’s a law. Unless something hap- 
pens, Tommy will one day go his last step, and then, 
I suppose, he’ll shoot himself, or — Heaven knows 
what.” 

“Then,” said I, “I pray Heaven something may 
happen.” 

“Amen!” said old Arabella, nodding over her work. 

Jimmy Rogers knocked the ash out of his pipe and 
looked up. 

“When I went up to town on Monday,” he said, “I 
ran upon a chap in the University Club whom you used 
to know, Bill. He was in New Haven with us. Tommy 
knew him too. His name’s Carstairs.” 

“Ah!” said I, “I’ve heard of him several times in the 
past two or three years. Surgeon, isn’t he?” 


288 


TOMMY CARTERET 


“Ripping good one, I’m told,” said Jimmy Rogers, 
“even if he is a young chap. Done some fine things. 
Well, the point is, I — well, I told him a bit about Tommy 
— ^leaving the name out, of course, and I asked him 
what he thought the thing might be.” 

Old Arabella laid down her knitting and looked up 
sharply. 

“ Well ?” she demanded. “ Well ?” 

“Of course,” said Jimmy Rogers, “he wanted to see 
Tommy. He wanted to study the case, as they say, 
but the odd thing was that he laughed at the notion of 
its being incurable.” 

“Yes, but hang it! ” said I, “ thatiMcPherson, McKen- 
zie man thought a cure was doubtful. Did you tell him 
that?” 

“ I did,” said Jimmy Rogers. 

“And what did he say?” I asked. 

“He laughed again,” said Jimmy Rogers. 

Old Arabella took up her knitting. 

“Could you,” she inquired, “persuade this surgeon 
young man, do you think, to come to me, at Red Rose, 
for a week? You might tell him that I pine for con- 
genial society.” 


CHAPTER XXI 


‘‘Brig o’ Dread” 

On the night of this same day Tommy had a sort of 
battle royal with the woman Mariana. It was but one 
of many such scenes, but I set it down for a certain 
reason which will, later on, be evident. It seems that 
she had been in a bad temper for some days, given to 
fits of rage over nothing, moody and, for her, silent 
when not storming. At dinner on this day she had 
made a scene which, for all of Tommy’s efforts, could 
not but be evident to Jimmy and to me. We spent the 
evening at Red Rose, where Sibyl played to us and sang 
a number of old ballads very sweet and quaint, 
and Sibyl had a golden voice — still has, for that 
matter. When we returned to the Hall we had a 
good-night game of pool and a last pipe, and sepa- 
rated, a bit after midnight I should think, in the upper 
hallway. 

Tommy says that he hardly expected the woman to 
appear at all that night, for she had left the dinner table 
in a furious rage, and so he went into his room and 
switched on the electrics with a certain sense of free- 
dom, a sense almost of gaiety, as one might feel who is 
promised a day’s respite from habitual pain. The 
woman was sitting in a chair beside an open window 
and looking out into the soft, warm night. 

It seems that Tommy uttered a little exclamation 
when he saw her there, and made as if he would go back 
289 


290 


TOMMY CARTERET 


out of the room, but the woman turned and sneered at 
him. 

“You might as well come in,’’ she said. “I aim to 
wait until you do.” Then Tommy shut the door and, 
crossing the room slowly, dropped down in another 
chair which stood some distance from hers. She did 
not immediately speak again, and he, so he says, sat 
drooping in his chair — all that glad sense of elation 
and hope gone from him, sunken once more in 
bitterness — and stared across at her, waiting for her 
to begin. 

He says that by some freakish whim of the mind a 
certain dull curiosity came upon him — due possibly to 
his talk with me, on that morning — so that he looked at 
her critically, dispassionately, as one might, with a cold 
and scientific eye, examine some strange phenomenon. 
She was, as always at this hour, in her thin night>dress 
with that tawdry, soiled dressing-gown thrown over it, 
and Tommy, thinking of his argument with me, won- 
dered, grimly amused, where and how the woman had 
come by it. She had no physical substance, hence this 
wrap must have none. Yet such a garment could not 
have come with her out of her former life ; it was too 
fine for that ; it was an expensive garment covered with 
lace and ribbons and embroidery and such, only soiled 
and unkempt. Where had she come by it ? And where 
by those other clothes which she wore in the daytime ? 
He remembered that they all had this air — too much 
ornament, too much colour, too little sense of the 
appropriate and fitting. It seemed to him — ^sitting in 
judgment, thus, outside himself — an interesting feature 
of the case. He says that he made a mental note to 
discuss it with me, one day. He says that he was on 
the point of asking the woman about it, but refrained. 


BRIG O’ DREAD” 


291 


for he did not care to break her silence. It would be 
broken soon enough without that. 

From the garment she wore he looked up at her face, 
and — mind you he was deliberately critical, for the 
time, deliberately outside himself — it came to him with 
a fresh intensity how amazingly she had grown to re- 
semble her sister. Rose Barrows. He had almost 
laughed when the sister had prophesied this. At that 
time the thing had seemed incredible. She was too 
young, too round, and brown and blooming, and far 
too beautiful, he would have said, ever to come to such 
a state. But she had come to it. He looked at her 
with narrowed eyes and said to himself that she must 
have gained twenty pounds. She was still, in a large, 
coarse fashion, handsome — no longer beautiful, but 
there were unpleasant lines at the corners of her 
mouth and about the eyes, and the skin under 
her eyes was beginning to form little purses, as 
it is apt to do in women of that type. Her face 
had far too much colour; also, it was florid; and 
her eyes had taken on a curiously hard, defiant 
stare. 

‘Ht’s as if,” said Tommy to himself, “as if she had 
lived ten years in these ten months. I wonder why 
that is?” 

He tried to go on in this mood of dispassionate exam- 
ination and reasoning, but the mood failed him ab- 
ruptly, and a great depression followed in its steps, with 
a sort of miserable futile anger playing about the 
depression. 

“For God’s sake, Mariana!” he cried, starting up in 
his chair, “how long is this hell to endure?” The 
woman turned a sullen face to him. 

“Oh! you’ll talk at last, will you ?” she said. 


292 


TOMMY CARTERET 


^‘How long?’’ said Tommy, and his eyes burned 
under their lowered brows. 

‘‘Until you come the rest of the way,” said she, and, 
after a moment, laughed low under her breath. And 
then Tommy shook his head, taking his eyes from her, 
and sank back once more in his chair. He knew this 
mood of hers. 

“A long waiting! ” said he, and his jaw set hard. 

“You’ll come,” she nodded. “I reckon you’ll come. 
I can wait — and then ” 

“And then ?” said Tommy. 

Oddly, a little crying, whining fit of passion came 
over her, so that she began to tremble, and fidget with 
her hands. 

“I’m sick o’ waiting!” she said. “Ain’t you — aren’t 
you never going to come ? What makes you hate me 
so? You — didn’t always hate me. You used to — 
care. You said ’at you did, anyways. What makes 
you hate me ? I ain’t any different, am I ? am I ? You 
wanted to marry me once. Why won’t you marry me 
now?” 

“Must we go over all this again?” said Tommy 
wearily, from his chair. “We have said it all so often! 
Can you not see how horribly different everything is? 
Oh, it’s preposterous! it’s unspeakable! Are you trying 
to drive me to my death? You’ll do it in time, you 
know.” 

The woman’s eyes flashed upon him suddenly, and 
her lips widened to an awful smile which she tried to 
smother with her two hands. 

“By God!” said Tommy in a low whisper, staring at 
her. “By God, I believe that’s what you’re trying to 
do! You want me to — come to you — that way!** 
But the woman broke out upon him in a sort of panic. 


‘‘BRIG DREAD” 


293 


“Oh, no, no!” she cried. “No, it ain’t — it isn’t 
that! Honest, it isn’t that. I swear it isn’t. I just — 
want you for myself. We’re as good as married. 
You were going to marry me. In another hour we’d 
’a’ ben married. Why can’t we pretend we was? 
Nobody’d ever know. Why can’t we pretend?” 

She slipped out of her chair and dragged herself on 
her knees near to him — ^not too near; not near enough to 
be within reach, for she had acquired a sort of fiendish 
cunning about this. She seemed to know that if Tommy 
could put out his hand and pass it through her, as 
through air, her spell over him must snap in an instant. 
Just beyond his hand’s touch she was a woman of flesh 
and blood, with all the allurements, all the power to 
tempt and draw that any woman might wield. From 
that little distance she could defy him to think her an 
illusion — within the danger zone her power was nothing. 

“I don’t aim to make you miserable!” she cried, 
kneeling before him. A little sob ran through her 
voice, and her hands twisted together in her lap. “I 
didn’t come for that. Honest, I didn’t, but — ^you hate 
me so! You’re always a-madding me an’ I — I lose 
my temper. Ef you’d on’y — come!” 

“Come?” said Tommy in a bitter voice — ^but I 
think that, for the moment, he had himself in hand 
and was trying to trap her into some admission. 
“Come? Come to what? You’re mad! What more 
can you have in store for me ? Come to what ? You’re 
a shade, a phantom. I cannot touch you. If I 
should lean forward and put out my hand it would 
pass through you as if you were empty air. Come to 
what?” But the woman nodded her head with that 
same cunning, widening snaile which had something 
awful about it, 


294 


TOMMY CARTERET 


“On’y — come!’’ she said in an eager whisper. 
“You’ll know — soon. They’s something you don’t 
— know about. On’y come! Just once; just this 
once!” The cunning smile widened still and broke 
into a shaking, nervous laugh, horrible to hear. But 
an odd little fit of anger swept over the man in the 
chair. 

“Will nothing rid me of you?” he cried harshly. 
“Will you never leave me in peace?” 

“Not until somebody has a better right to you than 
I’ve got,” said she. “An’ that ain’t likely, I reckon.” 

“No!” said Tommy, with his face in his hands. 
“No, that’s not likely. I’m under a curse. I’m 
unclean. I wish to Heaven I might die!” He did 
not see the woman’s face when he said that. I wish 
he had. I have a notion that it might have been 
illuminating. 

Then, after a moment, she dragged herself nearer 
still on her knees, so near that he heard the stir of the 
linen and lace over her breast as she breathed — heard 
the breath come and go sharply between her teeth — 
caught the odour of some heavy, over-powerful scent 
which she wore on her garments or on her hair. It 
was a hot night, and this scent seemed peculiarly well to 
go with it — a cloying, heavy scent like the suffocating 
odour of roses in a greenhouse. It seemed to go 
with — nay, to characterise, the whole wretched scene. 

“On’y — come!” said the woman in a whisper. 
“You’ll be glad. Truly you will — ^glad! Come to- 
night! Some day you’ve got to come, you know. 
You — can’t stan’ this forever. I’ll make it jus’ what 
you said ’at it was, a hell for you, till you do. Some 
day you’ve got to come. Why not now?” The 
little half-sob, half-laugh was running through her 


“BRIG O’ DREAD” 


295 


words again, and the hands which she stretched out 
toward him trembled with eagerness. 

Tommy’s hands slipped from his face and dropped 
nerveless into his lap. His eyes stared wide and very 
weary — overwrought, overstrained, at the woman who 
knelt and trembled an arm’s length away, dishevelled, 
pleading, racked with desire. She had been strong in 
that thing we call physical magnetism when she was 
alive — oddly strong : she was strong now, and Tommy, 
I think, very weak. He was worn out. 

As she knelt there, the light from the electrics fell 
across one shoulder and upon her cheek and lifted 
chin. By some odd trick of it, she looked, for an 
instant, younger, slighter, more the Mariana of Egypt 
land. What was there about the pose, about the way 
that light fell across her cheek and upon her breast? 
What was there about this still heat and the cloying, 
suffocating scent ? Tommy’s eyes closed for a moment. 

The little gully where the blackberries grew! 
where Mariana of the Dutch Creek road had knelt and 
pleaded with him! 

“On’y — come!” she said again, breathing between 
her words. 

^^Why not?” said Tommy Carteret, with his odd, 
fixed stare. ^^Why notf” and the woman cried out 
aloud. 

“You’ll — come?” she said. “You’ll come? Oh, 
yes, yes! Come!” she stumbled to her feet, laughing 
her broken, hysterical, sobbing laugh, and crossed the 
room, looking back at him as she went. 

“Come!” she said, and opened the door to the 
farther room. 

Tommy Carteret rose, swaying a bit, and followed 
her. His eyes still bore that fixed stare, like a man 


296 


TOMMY CARTERET 


under hypnotic control, and his feet groped to their 
steps. 

What did he think to find in that room beyond, 
the completing sense, or — the end of all things? I 
do not know. Something definite, surely; something 
to end this torture of uncertainty and dread. I can 
imagine that he did not much care what he went to — 
only that it be decisive. Something I ascribe to his 
mood, doubtless, to the weariness and despair of that 
hour, but, in any case, I think he was nearly at the 
end of endurance. Yes, I can imagine that he did not 
much care what he went to. 

“Come!’’ said the woman, standing in the open door, 
and she went through into the farther room, looking 
back over her shoulder at him — ^holding his eyes with 
hers. He heard her laugh in the dark beyond and he 
put up his hands over his eyes. 

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” he said, and crashed 
into the door with such force that he reeled back 
from the impact and nearly fell, and at last stood 
shaking, his eyes fixed before him — for both bolt and 
key were on his side, and the key was turned, and the 
bolt, through long disuse, rusted home. 


CHAPTER XXII 


Old Tommy Does What He Can 

It was just about this time that we heard in a rather 
odd fashion both of and from old Tommy Carteret. 
A certain middle-aged Englishman, late of the diplo- 
matic service, a man of some note, happened to be in 
New York for two or three days en route from Japan 
to London. He had been an admirer of Arabella 
Crowley some years before, and Arabella had him 
out at Red Rose for luncheon one day. It chanced 
that three or four of us — Arabella, the Englishman, 
Jimmy Rogers, I think, and I — were sitting on the 
veranda there when Tommy Carteret came across 
from the Hall to find Sibyl, with whom he was to go 
driving. 

Old Arabella, of course, introduced the two men, 
and the Englishman looked after young Tommy, as 
he moved away, nodding his head with approval. 

‘‘That young man has a fine face!’’ he said, “a 
strong face, though not happy, I should think. He is 
the type one instinctively wishes to know more of. 
Did you say the name was Cartwright or Carteret 

“Carteret,*^ said old Arabella. “Thomas Carteret.” 
The Englishman looked up with some surprise. 

“That is odd!” said he. 

“Odd?” demanded old Arabella. “How, odd?” 

“An odd coincidence of names,” said the man. “I 
knew a Thomas Carteret in Hong Kong last winter — 
297 


298 


TOMMY CARTERET 


at least, I think the name was Carteret. It may have 
been Cartwright. I happen never to have seen it 
written. He was a much older man than your young 
friend there — ^sixty, I should think; an interesting man.’' 
Old Arabella’s eyes drooped for a moment. 

‘‘Yes?” she said politely; “in what way was he in- 
teresting ? ” 

“He was oddly — ^lovable,” said the Englishman, with 
a little laugh over the word. “He was one of the very 
rare people whom no one can help liking. He will 
have been a great favourite among women, all his 
life, I am sure. Indeed, I heard at Hong Kong that 
half a dozen women there had been — slightly indiscreet, 
at least, over him, and, mind you, he is quite sixty if 
not more. An interesting man!” 

Mrs. Crowley looked up quite calmly. 

“He does not sound altogether — pleasant,” she 
said. “A rather untrustworthy person, I should 
think — an old beau.” 

“Yes,” said the man, nodding thoughtfully. “Yes, 
I expect he will have been untrustworthy. Still — it 
isn’t the steady-running, trustworthy sort that makes 
a picturesque spot in life, is it? Now this old chap 
out in Hong Kong I should pick to be almost without 
a moral sense, and almost without any strength of 
character — I don’t mean that he is vicious, but — well, 
weak, very weak and constitutionally incapable of 
facing pain. And yet, everybody loved him. Now, 
if I were a novel-writer,” he said, laughing gently, 
“I should pick that old chap and write a book round 
him. I promise you it would be interesting.” 

Old Arabella seemed to give a little shiver as if she 
suddenly felt cold. 

“Interesting, doubtless,” she said, as if the topic 


WHAT OLD TOMMY DOES 


299 


had begun to bore her a bit, ‘‘but rather too tragic to 
be pleasing, I should think. The suffering such a 
man spreads about him, as he goes, is sufficiently heavy 
to outweigh his charm.” But the Englishman wagged 
a stubborn head. 

“No one could help loving the man,” he insisted. 
“There was something — sweet about him. You’d 
have loved him yourself, if he’d ever passed your 
way.” 

That was how we heard of old Tommy, and, as things 
so frequently fall out, it was the very next morning that 
we heard from him. 

I was walking on the high bank which overhangs the 
sandy beach near Tommy’s cove. It was one of those 
entirely perfect summer days which inspire poets to 
write things — blue overhead, blue out at sea — out on 
the Sound, that is — blue made bluer by white, dipping 
sails and an occasional trail of black or creamy 
smoke from a steamer. Gulls wheeled overhead, 
mewing plaintively; birds squabbled among the shrub- 
bery beneath me, cheeping and cursing and making 
love to each other. A tiny surf plashed in over the 
sand, and a landward breeze, a lazy, cool breeze full 
of the sweet savour of the sea, came with it. 

I had refilled my pipe and was just about arriving 
at that pleasantly melancholy stage in which one 
recalls other perfect days, and sighs and says to himself, 

“If only ” etc., when I caught sight of old Arabella 

coming toward me across the wide lawn. I thought 
that her face bore an odd smile and I noticed that she 
held a letter in one hand. 

“Good morning, William,” said old Arabella. “I 
am sorry to see that you cannot enjoy this Heaven-sent 
day without steeping yourself in vile tobacco smoke. 


300 


TOMMY CARTERET 


Have you, er, a cigarette about you ? ” I had, and old 
Arabella lighted it with apparent satisfaction. 

“Have you seen Tommy this morning?’’ she went 
on. 

“I breakfasted with him a half-hour ago,” said I, 
“but we didn’t speak ten words to each other. Tommy 
had a lot of letters and buried himself in them. One 
seemed to amuse him.” 

“It might well,” said Mrs. Crowley, “if it didn’t 
make him weep. It left me undecided between the 
two.” 

“Oh, you read it. Aunt Arabella?” I asked. 

“Tommy gave it to me,” she said. “It is from — 
old Tommy.” 

“The deuce!” said I. 

“Quite sol” said Arabella. “It is odd coming so 
soon after what we heard of him yesterday. He is 
married.” 

I sat down upon the turf and stared. “ He is married 
to poor little Anne Hartwell,” said Arabella. “It 
seems that she went out to him at Hong Kong, a month 
ago — I knew she had left New York — and they were 
married at once. They’re in Batavia, and mean to 
stay there, or near, up in the mountains, somewhere.” 

“Married!” said I in a sort of gasp. “Old Tommy 
Carteret married! I can’t believe it. It’s not in him.” 

“It evidently was in him,” said Mrs. Crowley, and 
lowered herself cautiously to the turf beside me. She 
had maintained an air of careless indifference, a half- 
jocular air, but there was an unusual colour in her 
cheeks, and her hand, as she raised her cigarette or 
flicked off the ash, was not quite steady. She was more 
excited over the thing than she cared to admit, I fancy. 

“Married!” I croaked again, shaking my head. 


WHAT OLD TOMMY DOES 


301 


‘‘Old Tommy Carteret married I” Then, after quite 
a time, Arabella looked at me, and there was a sort of 
wistfulness in her eyes, I thought— a sort of half-timidity. 

“He— did his best, William,” she said. “It was 
as if she asked a question. ‘"He was long about it, 
and there wasn’t much that he could do, but— at the 
last he did what he could.” 

“Yes,” said I, for I saw that she wanted me to help 
her whitewash poor old Tommy. “Oh, yes, he did 
his best — at last. He’d have done more, I fancy, 
long ago, if he could have, but I — expect he just 
couldn’t. He wasn’t very strong. Aunt Arabella, and 

he What was it that chap said yesterday? ‘He 

was incapable of facing pain.’ That’s it, I think! He 
was quite incapable of facing pain.” 

“Yes, yes, William!” said old Mrs. Crowley with a 
sort of eagerness. “He just couldn’t do it. He was 
so very weak. You — don’t expect heroism of a child, 
do you ? Old Tommy was a child in some ways. He 
couldn’t deny himself what he wanted, and — couldn’t 
take punishment.” She looked down at the letter in 
her lap and smoothed it with her two hands, smiling 
over it. 

“I wish I might read you this,” she said, after a 
bit, “but I am afraid Tommy wouldn’t wish me to. 
It’s — it would make you feel less bitter toward old 
Tommy, I think. He has suffered too, William. He 
has suffered as much as it is in him to suffer, I think. 
It is rather a — nice letter, not so cowardly as one would 
have feared. It’s franker, somehow. — I’m glad he 
married her,” she said. “I — ^had been feeling very 
bitter toward him on young Tommy’s account. I had 
said to myself that he was unworthy of the smallest con- 
sideration. I called him hard names, William, hard 


302 


TOMMY CARTERET 


names, and it hurt me to do that. I’m glad he has 
married Anne Hartwell. I shall be able to — like him 
again, now.” She looked up at me once more with 
that little half-timid smile, and the colour deepened 
a bit in her cheeks. 

‘Tt had been a — ^habit!” she said, “liking old 
Tommy. I was very fond of him. Now I shall be 
able to resume the habit — and I’m glad.” 

It was just about at this time, too, that young Car- 
stairs the surgeon, of whom Jimmy Rogers had spoken, 
came to Red Rose. It is because his coming belongs 
here in order of time — here in these days of comparative 
uneventfulness — that I jumble it in together with what 
I have just told of our news of old Tommy. Of course, 
the two things have nothing to do with each other. 
I do not know just why he consented to come, for he 
was as busy as a young surgeon with a rather extraor- 
dinary reputation might be supposed to be. It will have 
been partly, I think, a keen professional interest in 
Tommy Carteret’s unusual affliction, and partly — ^he 
was a wise young man, Carstairs — a recognition that 
it would be well to oblige a woman of Arabella Crow- 
ley’s social position in New York life. 

He came for a week-end, but circumstances, which 
will appear later on, kept him with us much longer. 
We did not, at first, tell Tommy who the man was. We 
presented him simply as an old friend of Mrs. Crowley’s. 
Tommy remembered having had a nodding acquaint- 
ance with him in New Haven, but he (Tommy) had 
been so little in America during the five years since he 
had taken his degree that Carstairs’ professional fame 
was quite unknown to him. We were afraid of awaken- 
ing in him some resentment, if not outright defiance, 
if we admittedly set a doctor over him, but I am not 


WHAT OLD TOMMY DOES 


303 


sure that we need have feared. Certainly when, after 
two or three long talks which the two had, the truth 
was made plain. Tommy showed no resentment what- 
ever. He showed no interest, either, I must admit, 
for, I think, he was well past hope; but he was not 
angry. 

I think Carstairs was good for him. He was one 
of those men who are born to be healers just as certain 
women are born to nurse. He bore an air of quiet 
power, a soothing, reassuring air. There are many 
such men in his profession. One sinks back with a 
breath of relief as they come into the room. One 
feels instinctively that they are strong for good — ^very 
strong and adequate. 

I said Tommy showed no interest. That was 
hasty, perhaps. A certain thing had shaken him, 
and his mind was not yet readjusted to its new focus. 
It was the matter of that locked and bolted door. He 
had been so certain that the presence which haunted 
him had an objective existence — walked through the 
world like himself, though invisible to all save his 
eyes — ^that when he had attempted to enter an open 
doorway and found the doorway closed — the door-bolt 
rusted fast — it had shocked and bewildered him oddly. 
It was as if the physical world had suddenly thrust a 
very tangible fist into his face as he sat dreaming. He 
could not make it out. 

I have no doubt that Carstairs pressed this advantage 
hard, for he was a skilful and shrewd man, not one to 
neglect an opportunity. I have no doubt that he used 
it by way of proving to poor Tommy that his vision 
walked only through his own perturbed brain and not 
through the outer world at all, and hence that through 
his own brain it must be exorcised. But when it came 


304 


TOMMY CAKTERET 


to what Carstairs wished to do, Tommy stuck fast. 
After all, he was but shaken, bewildered, not convinced. 

I remember a little talk which I had with Carstairs 
over the matter. It was on what was to have been his 
last evening at Baychester. He and Tommy and I 
had dined together at the Hall, for Tommy would never 
risk dining at Red Rose — poor beggar I — and Tommy 
remaining behind for some reason, Carstairs and I 
crossed the gardens and mounted the bit of a hill 
toward the lights of old Arabella’s veranda, which were 
beginning to prick the gathering dusk. I remember 
that Carstairs was a bit moody and cast down. He 
had, for the last time, wrought for hours with Tommy 
that afternoon, but Tommy was stubborn and would 
say only no. 

‘‘God knows what will come of it!” said the surgeon 
as we made our jvay through the gardens. “There is 
no doing anything with him. Argument and reason 
make no appeal whatever. God knows what will 
come of it. Suicide, I dare say, eventually. No man 
can bear very long what he is bearing.” 

“ Just what do you make of it ? ” I asked. “In plain, 
unscientific language, you know.” 

“Oh, it’s an extraordinary case, of course,” he said, 
“though not unheard-of, quite. What do you mean?” 

“How did he get it, then?” said I. “To what do 
you ascribe it?” 

“Oh!” said Carstairs, “I didn’t understand. Well, 
of course, one can only form a judgment. One doesn’t 
know. This — ^young woman appears to have been of 
an uncommonly strong, magnetic character. I take 
it that she obtained, during the last rather melo- 
dramatic scenes of her life, a powerful influence over 
Carteret’s mind— made a powerful impression upon 


WHAT OLD TOMMY DOES 


305 


him. His mind, at that time, one may judge to have 
been weak, in a sense. That is to say, he had long 
been under great strain of melancholy and resistance. 
He allowed the resistance to give way, and his fagged- 
out spirit was at its lowest ebb. The young woman 
took advantage of it.” 

“Yes, yes I” said I. “I know all that; but this 
hallucination — ^this illusion ! ” 

“Possibly a species of unconscious hypnotism on the 
part of the girl before she was killed,” said Carstairs. 
“If I am right, her words, at the last moment, referred 
to an intention of coming to him even if she were dead. 
More probably it is due to the strong impression of that 
scene and the girl’s words which was made on Carteret’s 
mind before the injury to his head, and which was 
helped on — maintained, as one might say — by a certain 
mental confusion due to a lesion. I fancy there is 
a lesion resulting from that fractured skull of his. 
It would take a long time to explain my theories — and, 
after all, they are mere theories. The point is, he 
won’t let me operate. So there we are!” 

“So there we are!” I echoed with a sigh. “Poor 
old Tommy! Was ever a man so tormented?” And, 
as often, a little fit of helpless anger swept over me. 

“Why, in God’s name, should it be Tommy?” I 
cried. “What’s Tommy being punished for? He 
never willingly hurt a soul. Why the devil can’t sins 
be paid for by the people who commit them? Why 
must an innocent man suffer for what he hasn’t done ? 
I could manage it better myself!” 

“Apply elsewhere,” said Carstairs. “I am a 
surgeon.” 

Sibyl was at the piano, playing and singing, when 
we reached Red Rose. Carstairs went in, at once, to 


306 


TOMMY CARTERET 


where old Arabella and Jimmy Rogers sat in the 
music-room listening, but I tramped the porch for a 
few moments to finish my cigarette. Sibyl must have 
been a bit sad that evening — even Sib’s stout heart 
must have been down for an hour — for she was singing 
melancholy little German songs with a wail to them — 
all about partings, and deaths, and lovers who never 
came back. And, after a bit, she sang ‘‘ Loch Lomond,” 
as only Sib can sing it, and that nearly finished me, for 
Sibyl has a voice of living gold, and she never thinks of 
it or of how it will sound when she sings. She sings 
with her heart. I have seen her make the most 
hardened fish for their handkerchiefs — and, at that, 
she wasn’t half trying. 

I finished my cigarette and turned into the house, 
but it occurred to me that it must be uncomfortably 
warm in the music-room beyond, and I dropped down 
into a certain big chair which stands among the shadows 
of the long hall. There was a dim light in the music- 
room, across from where I sat, and there were lights 
on the porch, outside, but the hall was dark, and cool, 
too, for the evening breeze bore in through wide- 
opened doors and stirred the hangings near my chair. 

I heard Jimmy Rogers ask Sibyl to sing the last 
verse of ‘‘Loch Lomond” over again, and I squirmed 
while she sang it, for that song always makes me choke. 
Then, when she had finished, and was striking the 
first slow introductory chords of something else, I heard 
a step on the porch outside, and Tommy Carteret came 
into the hall. He went toward the door of the music- 
room, but Sibyl began just then to sing again, and he 
drew back and stood waiting until she should finish. 

For a moment I thought of starting up and inter- 
rupting her myself, for Sib’s selection was not fortunate. 


WHAT OLD TOMMY DOES 


307 


She was singing a song by E. Nesbit, called “The 
Past,” and I knew how it would be with Tommy. I 
set the words down here so that you may judge for 
yourselves, but remember that they were sung in the 
dusk, among shadows. Remember that Sibyl was low 
that evening, and that her sadness trembled in her 
beautiful deep voice. Remember that her voice was 
hushed — held to half its strength. And remember 
that Tommy stood without, listening. 

Make strong your door with bolt and bar, 

Make every window fast; 

Strong brass and iron as they are, 

They are so easy passed — 

So easy broken and cast aside. 

And by the open door 
My footsteps come to your guarded home. 

And pass away no more. 

In the golden noon — by the lovers’ moon, 

My shadow bars your way, 

My shroud shows white in the blackest night 
And gray in the gladdest day. 

And by your board and by your bed 
There is a place for me, 

And in the glow when the coals burn low. 

My face is the face ye see. 

I come between when ye laugh and lean, 

I burn in the tears ye weep : 

I am there when ye wake in the gray day-break 
From the gold of a lover’s sleep. 

I wither the rose and I spoil the song. 

And Death is not strong to save — 

For I shall creep while your mourners weep. 

And wait for you in your grave. 

Fate juggled cleverly there — that Sibyl should have 
sung that song just as poor Tommy came to listen. 


308 


TOMMY CAKTERET 


It was ingeniously cruel. As I have said, I was minded 
to call out and interrupt her. Twice or thrice I was 
minded to call out while Tommy stood there rigid, 
bowed, gripping a chair-back with one hand. But 
something held me, and I could not speak. Tommy 
stood quite still to the very end, and then, when she 
had finished, he turned and went out as silently as he 
had come. As he went, I saw his face, for an instant, 
in the light from the porch lamps, and I covered my 
eyes with my hands. Then he went on alone down 
through the night to that which waited for him. 

And by your board and by your bed 

There is a place for me.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


I Come Between When Ye Laugh and Lean 

La nuit porte conseil. Often, also, it brings peace — 
tranquillity — courage. Many a poor devil has laid his 
head upon his pillow in bitterness and anguish to 
awake into a world of sunshine and birds and flowers 
and sweet air, with that bitterness somehow soothed 
and calmed — with hope stirred afresh in him. It was 
so, I think, with Tommy, who had gone to his bed with 
that cruel song marching and countermarching 
through his brain (all in Sib’s dear voice, too, mind 
you!) 

“I wither the rose and I spoil the song, 

And deUth is not strong to save — 

For I shall creep while your mourners weep. 

And wait for you in your grave.’’ 

There’s hopelessness for you, and I know the hopeless- 
ness bit deep into Tommy’s soul. But in the morning 
the world smiled at him through his drawn curtains — 
a sweet summer world with balm in its breath, and 
there seemed no place there for clouds, no gloomy 
corners where shadows might lurk. It is hard to be 
cheerless in the face of such. He breakfasted early — 
before either Jimmy Rogers or I were down, and went 
out into the gardens with his pipe. Even the tobacco, 
he says, conspired with that fresh, aromatic air to 
soothe and comfort him. He went to the shaded 
bench under the north wall — ^there was still dew on 
309 


310 


TOMMY CARTERET 


the leaves and turf, fresh unspeakably, delicious 
beyond words — and he seated himself there, where 
Sib and he had so often sat together, and the lines 
of bitterness were somehow soothed out of his 
face and a little, lazy, contented smile became fixed 
there. 

Then, by way of completing it all, she came to him — 
Sibyl, all in white and pink; white gown, white hat — a 
big, flat one with streamers — pink cheeks. She was 
very like the morning. No ! Tommy says the morning 
was very like her — as like as a mere morning could hope 
to be. She came to him through aisles of roses, and 
Tommy says that the roses reached out and tried to 
touch her as she came — with a view to boasting of it 
afterward, I expect. 

He laid down his pipe as she came near him, and 
held out his hands to her. 

“I’m the early bird. Sib,” said Tommy. 

“I am not a worm!” said Sibyl haughtily, but she 
sat down upon the stone bench beside the early bird, 
and she seemed glad to be there. 

“I hope everybody else is asleep. Tommy dear,” 
she said. “I want us to own the morning ail for our 
own lone selves. Isn’t it the most exquisite thing there 
ever was, or could be ?” 

“With one exception,” said Tommy. And she 
seemed to like that, too. 

“You do look like the early bird!” she criticised 
presently, ** after he has eaten the worm. You look 
fat and sleepy and contented. You’re positively smug. 
Tommy. Has that triumphant smile come to stay 
for ever ’n’ ever ? ” 

“I think so,” said Tommy. “Yes, I think so. 
Smug, indeed! I could beat you for that, if I weren’t 


I COME BETWEEN 


311 


far too lazy and comfortable. Call me something else ; 
you’re safe.” 

Sibyl pulled a rose which hung within reach and 
buried her absurd little tip-tilted nose in it, while 
Tommy, leaning back against the wall, narrowed his 
eyes, the better to see, and drew a quick sharp breath 
of sheer delight at the exquisite young beauty of her, 
and at the picture she made sitting there with that 
rose held to her face. She had the very white skin 
which red-haired women almost always have, but 
there was a great deal of colour in her cheeks, and 
this colour came and went with every change of mood. 
Also her lips were very red — the upper one projecting 
beyond the lower — and they had a deceitfully pathetic 
droop at the corners, which had wrought much damage 
ever since Sibyl had put away short frocks and begun 
to take notice. Her eyes were not blue, as one might 
expect, but red-brown, and that is a danger-signal — 
or a thing greatly to rejoice over, as circumstances fall. 
Further, she had that type of figure in which the late 
M. Watteau used so greatly to delight — slender ex- 
quisitely, but not in the wrong places; slender, that is 
to say, at neck and waist, at wrist and ankle — else- 
where rounding, tapering delicately, as a girl’s figure 
should be, with lines that grow toward fulness but 
reach it never. A full curve is an ugly thing! She 
was taller than Tommy’s shoulder — ^Tommy stood six 
feet — as tall as his lips, it may be. He had to bend his 
head, I know, to look full into her eyes. Oh, yes, 
Sibyl was very beautiful. 

‘‘Confession’s good for the soul. Sib,” said Tommy, 
watching her with her rose. “’Fess up! How d’you 
happen to have eyebrows the colour of your hair? 
I thought all red-haired people had white ones.” 


312 


TOMMY CARTERET 


“I dye them, silly!” said Sibyl. 

*^You don’t!” cried Tommy, sitting up. “Non- 
sense! of course you don’t.” 

“But I do, child!” she insisted. “Anything but a 
man would know. I dye them with stuff out of a 
bottle. It improves them, heaps!” 

“Your eyelashes, too ?” he demanded. 

“No,” said she. “Those are dark by nature. I 
don’t know why. But I truly do dye the eyebrows.” 

“I’m ashamed of you!” said Tommy sternly. 
“You’re immoral, and I always thought you so good.” 

“Well, I’m not good,” said Sibyl, “and you might 
as well become used to it. — I have red hair,” she 
explained. Then she turned about, sitting beside him 
on the stone bench, and put out her two slim hands upon 
his shoulders. 

“Dear old Tommy!” she said. And Tommy 
flushed all at once. 

“Oh, Sib!” he cried under his breath, “Sib, you’re 
so very beautiful ! ” 

“ Now, you are a dear Tommy! ” said Sibyl. Tommy 
put up his two hands to hers and took them from his 
shoulders, and held them against his breast. Something 
stirred and altered in Sibyl’s eyes, deepened, sweetened, 
but she did not stir them from his eyes. And quite 
suddenly Tommy began to tremble before her. 

“How dear. Sib?” he asked in a whisper. “How 
dear?” But even as the words came, halting, he 
dropped her hands and covered his face, shrinking a 
bit away from her. 

“No! Ah, no!” he cried. “Don’t answer me. 
Sib, I — didn’t mean to say it. It said itself. I was 
mad! For one little bit of a — second, I — forgot. 
Don’t answer me.” Sibyl laid her hands upon his 


I COME BETWEEN 


313 


arm. They were light, but the arm dropped under 
them as if its strength were gone. 

'T shall answer if I please, Tommy,” she said. 
“Dearer than I can say. Dearer than all the other 
Tommies. Dearest of all. So there!” 

“I cannot stop you. Sib,” said he, and his eyes 
fronted her, wide with pain and misery. “I cannot 

unsay what IVe said, but Oh, Sib, Sib, you know! 

It is impossible that I should ask you such things or 
listen to you when you answer me. You know, dear.” 
His arms stiffened and his fists clenched fiercely. 
“If only I were a man like other men!” cried poor 
Tommy. “If only I were free, unhaunted, unbound! 
If only I could come to you. Sib, and tell you how I 
love you, worship you, dream of you, need you! Oh, 
Sib, you know what I am. You know how impossible 
all this is. IVe been a weak, fond fool to see you like 
this every day, to find out what a chap’s life might be 
with you in it. I’ve been a blackguard to drag you 
into my misery. I’ve made you unhappy, and for that 
God will pay me out, one day. Oh, Sib, I told you on 
that first day to shun me! I told you that every one 
who came near me must suffer from my curse. I told 
you I was unclean. See what I’ve brought you to!” 
He turned away from her, hiding his face once more, 
and for a little time Sibyl sat quite silent watching his 
bent shoulders. I think she could find no words just 
then. 

But after a bit he swung about, and his face was 
quiet again, but set and hard with the strain he had 
put upon it. 

“This mustn’t go on. Sib,” he said wearily. “It’s 
an impossible state of things. I’ve been a cowardly 
blackguard to make you — ^let you share what I — have 


314 


TOMMY CARTERET 


to go through, but I’ll be a blackguard no longer. 
Lepers should herd by themselves. I’ll go away again, 
or you must go back to town. I will not go on seeing 
you.” 

^'Oh, Tommy, dear I” said she, and her voice was 
near to sobbing. ‘T do not know what to do or say. 
I have been so full of hope. Tommy, so certain that we 
should cure you of — this. I’m certain of it yet, dear 
Tommy, but I don’t know what to do. Oh, yes, yes I 
We shall cure you, but — what to do? How to go 
about it?” 

“I’ve no hope of cure now. Sib,” said he. “Maybe 
I had at one time, but it’s dead. This thing has come 
to me — God knows why — and we can’t send it away. 
Do you remember that song you sang last night ? 

‘I come between when ye laugh and lean, 

I burn in the tears ye weep : 

I am there when ye wake in the gray day-break 
From the gold of a lovers’ sleep. 

I wither the rose and I spoil the song. 

And death is not strong to save — 

For I shall creep while your mourners weep, 

And wait for you in your grave.’ 

“It’s like that, I think. It’ll wait for me in my 
grave, and I shall know it’s there even when I’m dead.” 

“Oh, Tommy!” cried Sibyl in an agony. “Tommy, 
Tommy 1 Did you hear me singing that dreadful song ? 
I didn’t know. I didn’t know! Oh, Tommy, it isn’t 
true. I don’t know how I came to sing it. It’s a 
horrid song. It isn’t true, dear; it isn’t. Please don’t 
remember it. Tommy! See! You’ve made me cry. 
Oh, I’d rather have died than have you hear me 
singing that. It sounds as if I believed it, and I don’t, 
I don’t!” She did weep a little then, wringing her 


I COME BETWEEN 


315 


hands together in her lap, and Tommy looked away, 
cursing himself, and stiffening his arms lest they go 
out to her. Then after a bit, when she had done with 
weeping and was calm once more, she spoke again. 

“Tommy,’* she said bravely, “look at me and tell 
me the truth now without scruple or evasion. Never 
mind why I ask. Do you truly love me. Tommy, better 
than anything? If it were not for — for this trouble, 
would you have come to me and asked me to — marry 
you? See to what unmaidenliness you drive me I” 

“As Gk)d lives. Sib,” said he, and began again to 
tremble. “As God lives, I love you more than any- 
thing or everything in the world, and more than any 
hopes I have of a world to come. I love you much 
more than anything like words can even hint. There’s 
no way. Sib, of telling or showing how I love you.” 

“Then,” said Sibyl, “will you marry me. Tommy, 
now, as soon as may be ? I didn’t think I should ever 
come to begging a man to marry me, but I have, and I 
don’t care. Will you marry me. Tommy ? Somehow, 
I feel that if I had you — if you had me always, always 
with you, you would be cured of — what haunts you. 
Somehow I feel that if I actually had a — ^better right to 
you — all the right there is, this — she would leave you 
in peace.” 

Tommy, who had been staring at her, wide-eyed, 
amazed beyond speech, gave a sudden exclamation. 

“Why that — ^that is odd!” said he. 

“What’s odd. Tommy?” she asked. 

“Your — ^saying that,” he said, “that about your 
* better right.’ It’s an odd coincidence. She said 
something like it to me once. She said she’d never 
leave me until some one had a better right to me than 
hers, and then she laughed and sneered.” 


316 


TOMMY CARTERET 


“But that’s just it!” cried Sibyl excitedly. “That’s 
just it, Tommy! I should have a better right, don’t 
you see? I should be married to you, and she never 
was. Oh, Tommy, Tommy, don’t you see? You 
have her own word for it!” 

For a single mad instant — ^time enough for the blood 
to surge up crimson across his face and ebb again — I 
think he had a shred of hope — saw a glimpse of freedom, 
but the moment passed, and his head drooped again 
and shook slowly back and forth. 

“No, Sib,” he said. “I will not do it. I will 
not sacrifice you. Enough have suffered through me 
already. Not you too. Sib; not you too! What the 
woman said was a mere chance. Your saying it in 
something like the same words startled* me for a 
moment, that’s all. Coincidence merely; coincidence. 
No, Sib, dear, I must go it alone. I would suffer ten 
thousand hells like my hell for ten thousand eternities 
rather than drag you into this with me.” 

“Must I beg you. Tommy?” said she. “Must I 
humiliate myself before you?” But Tommy cried 
out upon her in a hurt voice, and she hid her face, 
weeping again softly to herself. And Tommy, beside 
her, stared bitterly out over the sweet garden, and 
bitterly into the sweet, blue summer sky beyond, and 
cried upon his God, asking why Sibyl — ^whom surely 
God loved above all things — must have been made to 
suffer like all the rest. 

What befel after this I do not know — pleadings, I 
fancy, and denials — ^temptation and resistance. Oh, 
Tommy was a man on that day! And think what 
Sibyl offered him, not blindly, mind you, but counting 
the cost! If Tommy was a man that day, why, surely, 
Sibyl was a woman. God bless her! 


I COME BETWEEN 


317 


I suppose it was half an hour later that Tommy 
came up to the house and entered. I saw him as he 
came in through the open front door. I was in the 
upper hall, just about to go down, but I drew back for 
a moment to watch. I saw him cross the darkened 
lower hall, and he walked like a man who was very 
ill, bowed, faltering, dragging one heavy foot painfully 
after the other. Once, I remember, he ran into a 
heavy, round mahogany table which stood there, and 
I saw him back away, jerking his head up to look, like 
a drunken man. He came to the stairs and mounted, 
very slowly. The carpet had been taken up from 
them that morning, to be cleaned, and Tommy's feet 
struck heavy and loud upon the polished wood. 

He had almost reached the top of the stairs when 
he halted suddenly, as if some one had called out to him 
from below. He turned about, holding by the stair- 
rail, and faced the hall beneath him. 

**You — ^there!" he said aloud in a low, thick, ex- 
pressionless tone, and then his face worked, for an 
instant, and a dull flush came up over it. 

Of course it was not until long afterward that I 
learned what passed on both sides of this scene. Of 
course, at the time I heard only Tommy's side, and it 
was the more dreadful so, I expect; but now, as I 
look back at it, I seem to see it all as it really occurred. 
I seem to see the woman standing down there in the 
lower hall jeering and mocking at Tommy on the 
stairs, bending her body back and forth in ribald 
laughter at what she conceived to be an excellent joke. 
It seems that she called out to him as he was nearly at 
the top of the stairs. It was then that he turned. 
And it seems that she began to laugh, standing by the 
round mahogany table which had got in Tommy's 
way, and, laughing fiendishly, taunted him with the 


318 


TOMMY CARTERET 


scene through which he had just passed with Sibyl, 
asserting that she had heard the whole thing from 
behind a near-by bank of roses. It seems that she 
quoted extracts from the scene — things that Tommy had 
said and that Sibyl had said — laughing the while in 
coarse triumph. It seems that she went on from that to 
a free expression of her feelings toward Sibyl — ^you must 
imagine her words — ^but here Tommy broke fiercely 
in upon her. He had been standing by the stair-rail, 
but he moved back from it and leaned against the 
opposite wall, and, all at once, he began to shake very 
violently. This was when she commenced upon 
Sibyl. He broke fiercely in upon her and cursed her 
in low, deliberate, dreadful words — words I had never 
before heard from Tommy — and at some length. 

“ — and by the God who made you,’’ he concluded, 
‘‘and sent you here to torture me. I’ll pay you out for 
that. I’ll tear your damned head from your body, 
with my hands!” He must have gone quite off his 
head then, for he turned and sprang down the stairs 
toward the woman who stood there jeering. I started 
after him quickly, and called out: 

“Mind the stairs. Tommy! Mind the stairs!” for 
I saw his danger. But I was too late. His feet 
slipped on the polished wood, and he began to fall 
forward. He made a last convulsive effort or two 
to catch his equilibrium, but his feet, beating at the 
steps, only thrust him downward. He fell the entire 
length of the stairs and lay huddled at the bottom 
— huddled and still. 

When I reached him and turned him over, one side 
of his head was wet and crimson, and under it, where it 
had lain upon the floor, a little pool of blood had already 
formed. I felt for his heart, and it seemed to me to be 
quite still. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


Tommy Comes to the Rivek’s Brink 

How long I knelt there beside Tommy in the cool, 
darkened hall I do not know, but I know that I said 
over and over to myself : 

‘‘He^s dead I Tommy’s dead. Tommy has done 
for himself!” I know that I felt for his heart again 
and found no stir, and I know that that wet, crimson 
stain at the side of his head spread downward and 
began slowly to drip, drip, hotly upon my hand, and 
from it to the floor. Then, I suppose, I wakened to 
my senses and called out frantically for Parkins, for 
Jimmy Rogers, for any one who might be near. 

Steps came hastening from one of the rooms beyond, 
and some one bent over me. It was Parkins, white- 
faced, trembling a little, but self-contained as ever. 

‘‘Mr. Thomas has fallen and hurt himself,” I said. 
“Go at once to Red Rose for Dr. Carstairs. Look 
sharp, man! There is no time to lose.” Parkins 
ran. I fancy it was the first time he had run for years, 
and I heard him, out on the veranda, shouting. 
Carstairs must, by good chance, have been 
somewhere within sight. Then he came back, and, 
after him, Carstairs, with Jimmy Rogers close in 
the rear. 

Carstairs dropped on his knees beside me and bent 
over Tommy’s head, feeling at it with quick, expert 
fingers. 


319 


320 


TOMMY CARTERET 


“What happened?” he asked, and even in the midst 
of my dread and anxiety I noticed the sharp professional 
ring in his tone, the setting aside of personality. 

“He fell down the stairs,” said I. “He fell forward 
almost the entire length of the stairs, and I think his 
head struck against the sharp corner of that post. Is 
it — ^bad?” Somehow I did not dare ask the question 
which was on my tongue — Is he dead ? 

“Yes,” said Carstairs, “it’s bad. I don’t know how 
bad. Here, help me with him! Help me to carry him 
up to his bed.” He jerked a quick order over his 
shoulder to Parkins for water and cloths and such, 
and then we stooped, Jimmy Rogers helping us — I 
caught Jimmy Rogers’s eye once for a second, and I’ll 
swear there were tears in it — and raised poor Tommy’s 
limp body — I shall never forget the horrible dead- 
weight of it — and bore it carefully up to his room and 
laid it on the bed. 

I shall not go into what followed. I should be 
wearisome. Parkins brought cloths and water and 
helped the surgeon get Tommy’s clothes from him. I 
dashed across to Red Rose for Carstairs’s little bag of 
restoratives and the like, and then we waited, Jimmy 
and I, outside the closed door of Tommy’s room — 
Carstairs would have no one but Parkins in there with 
him. It seemed many hours that we waited, fidgeting 
about, talking instinctively in low, hushed voices, 
speculating, striving each to assure the other that the 
thing was of no great moment — that Tommy had but 
bumped his head and been knocked out for a bit. 
Each of us was full of tales, I remember — tales of 
similar accidents; and all the tales ended happily. 
Now, looking back upon it, I can laugh, for we must 
have been, in our solemn fashion, very absurd; but, at 


THE RIVER’S BRINK 


321 


the time, there was no laughter in us — nothing but a 
great shivering dread. 

I remember that presently, as we waited there, the 
tall clock in the hall below chimed musically and 
struck the hour, and I remember that Jimmy and I 
disputed over the count and pulled out our watches, 
each to prove that he was right. Jimmy was. It was 
ten o’clock. Then, following upon that, we heard old 
Arabella Crowley’s voice at the door, hurried, breath- 
less, broken with fear. I tiptoed to the head of the 
stairs and beckoned her up, and there were three of us 
to wait. Sibyl, it seemed, was away somewhere in one 
of the motors. 

I say it seemed hours that we waited in the cool, 
dim hall outside Tommy’s door. Probably it was a 
matter of fifteen minutes. Then, quite suddenly, 
while I was in the course of some football yarn about 
a chap who had been kicked in the head and rendered 
unconscious for half a day, the door opened, and my 
voice ran up into a queer falsetto squeak and broke off. 
It was Carstairs, coatless but calm, who came out, 
and a queer, pungent odour of drugs followed him. 

“Where is the telephone?” he asked. “I want to 
telephone into town. I want a nurse and Campbell and 
Hawes.” He named two names great in the surgical 
world. 

“ How is he ? ” I demanded. “ Is he — is he ” My 

throat was oddly dry, but I burst out with what had 
been on my tongue, earlier down at the foot of the 
stairs. “Is he — agoing to die ?” I asked. 

Carstairs shook his head. 

“Die?” said he. “Die? Oh, no, he won’t die. 
We shall pull him through, right enough. It’s not such 
a very bad knock. That’s not the — point, quite.” 


322 


TOMMY CARTERET 


He looked up at me, and there was, I thought, an odd 
expression in his eyes, an odd half-smile about his lips. 

‘Tt might interest you to know,” he said, ‘‘that 
Carteret has cracked his head open in exactly the spot 
where the bullet cracked it before.” It was not until 
he had turned away toward the telephone, which 
Jimmy Rogers pointed out to him, that I understood 
what he meant. I met Arabella Crowley’s eyes, and 
Arabella nodded. She knew, too, it would seem. 

The two great surgeons arrived between twelve and 
one, coming down from town in a fast motor-car. 
They brought nurses with them and an assistant, who 
carried their long, black leather bags of instruments. 
Carstairs met them at the veranda and took them at 
once up to the room where Tommy lay with his broken 
head. Sibyl had, by this time, come over from Red 
Rose, and the four of us waited below. I think our 
nerves were nearly at the limit of endurance when, at 
the end of something like two hours, we heard a door 
close gently in the upper hall, and, after a moment, low 
voices on the stairs. 

Carstairs brought his two colleagues into the library 
to speak to Arabella Crowley, whom both of them 
knew, but, as the others stood in a little group talking 
together, I drew Carstairs aside and got him into a 
corner. 

“Successful?” I asked anxiously. 

“ Eh ? ” said he. “ Eh, what ? Successful ? Oh, yes I 
I had no fear. Carteret will be up and out again in a 
few weeks.” 

“Yes, I know,” said I. “That wasn’t what I 
meant. I meant successful in the — other thing?” 
He did not affect to misunderstand me. 

“The — ^lesion?” he said. “Of course in a case of 


THE RIVER’S BRINK 


323 


this sort — a second fracture in the same area — it’s 
very difficult to be sure if there was such a thing — if a 
lesion had existed. Between you and me, we — 
Campbell and Hawes and I rather — er, disagree. It 
would have been easy to determine but for this second 
accident, this second fracture. I don’t know. I — 
hope.” I thought Carstairs seemed a bit nervous, 
a bit distrait. Some of his old-time assurance had, I 
thought, disappeared. 

‘‘Anyhow,” said I, “if he’s getting on so well, we 
shall soon know. He’ll be able soon to tell us if the — 
thing still haunts him.” 

“Eh?” said Carstairs absently. “Yes, yes. Quite 
so!” 

“For, of course,” I went on, “it was all in his head, 
poor chap! It had no independent existence as he 
believed.” 

“Ye-es,” said Carstairs again, stroking his chin. 
His manner annoyed me. 

“Well, had it?” I cried sharply. 

“I never saw the apparition myself,” said Carstairs. 
“ Still, there are more things ” 

“And you call yourself a surgeon!” said I. Car- 
stairs scowled. 

“I didn’t say the thing existed,” he said; “but Car- 
teret was firmly persuaded that it did, and — ^we surgeons 
can cure the body only. We can’t alter a man’s 
beliefs.” 

“But look here!” said I. “If Tommy gets well and 
finds himself free of his hallucination — finds that she 
doesn’t haunt him any more, this woman of his — She’ll 
believe it then, won’t he? He’ll be all right then, 
won’t he?” 

“I don’t know,” said Carstairs, in that irritating new 


324 


TOMMY CARTERET 


manner of his. I Ve been thinking it over and I don’t 
know. Belief’s a strong thing. Unless I’m greatly 
mistaken, we — and this lucky accident, together, have 
set Carteret physically back on his feet once more — 
normal as you or I, but that’s all. We’ve cleared the 
path: now make him believe it’s clear, if you can. I’ve 
been thinking it over. I don’t know.” 

“Oh, you’re an old woman I” said I rudely. And 
just then Sibyl came up to us. Her face was flushed 
and her eyes bright, but I noticed that her hands were 
trembling. Poor Sib I Those two hours had tried 
her sorely. 

“ You’ve — saved Tommy for us, Doctor Carstairs ? ” 
she said, smiling up at him. Carstairs made her a little 
awkward, jerky bow. He was not at his ease with 
women. 

“I’ve done my work. Miss Eliot,” said he. “I 
turn him over to you, now. There’ll be work for you 
to do, still.” Sibyl drew a little quick breath. 

“I’ll do it I” she said. “Oh, never fearl I’ll do 
it.” 


CHAPTER XXV 


Jimmy and I Make a Joukney 

One of the great differences between living through 
a series of events and writing about the same is that in 
the writing you may, if it seems best to you, skip. In 
the living, you must live through the tedious days as 
well as the exciting ones. Just at this point in Tommy’s 
history I am going to skip. I shall skip almost a 
month,, and I trust you are properly grateful. I skip, 
not because my knowledge of him ceases here or is 
intermitted, but because there is nothing to tell. I 
left Tommy in his bed with a skull cracked by accident 
and otherwise punctured and bedeviled by science. 
One man’s convalescence from such a state as this is 
much like another’s, and all are very dull. I shall 
pick Tommy up again at the time when he was almost 
able to be about once more. 

During this interval of three or four weeks Arabella 
Crowley and Sibyl remained constantly at Red Rose, 
and attended Tommy with all the devotion which 
those two very adequate professional women, whose 
business it was to care for him, would allow. Sibyl 
confessed to me, long afterward, that the two most 
thorough-going hatreds of her life had been for those 
two hard-working nurses — all because they wouldn’t 
let her kill Tommy with care and kindness. 

Jimmy Rogers and I were back and forth between 
town and Baychester, spending about an equal portion 
325 


326 


TOMMY CARTERET 


of time, I should think, in each. But we were all at 
Red Rose and the Hall at the time — mid-August, it 
was — at which I again take up the march of my tale — 
Tommy’s history. I remember that the four of us. 
Aunt Arabella Crowley, Sibyl, Jimmy Rogers and I, 
were sitting on the seaward veranda of Red Rose one 
morning when Carstairs came slowly up the hill from 
the Hall. I remember noticing, as he approached, 
that he looked tired, as if the heat — though it had been 
a cool summer — might have pulled him down a bit. 

He nodded to us pleasantly enough and dropped 
down into a chair, which creaked and whined under 
him. 

“How is Tommy?” asked Arabella Crowley. 

Carstairs shrugged his shoulders. 

“As usual,” said he, “waiting for his — friend, ex- 
pecting to see her open the door and walk in at any 
moment. I can do nothing with him. Argument is as 
useless as it was before his accident. He is really 
able to be up and about, for a short time each day, but 
he won’t get up because he is afraid. He thinks she 
may be waiting for him below stairs or in the garden.” 

Mrs. Crowley shook her white head. 

“Poor Tommy!” said she. 

“Yes; but look here!” said I. “If he never sees 
her, if she never comes to him, he must know something 
is different. He must realise that he’s better off than 
before. He — ^he hasnH seen her, of course — since the 
accident, I mean?” 

“I think not,” said Carstairs. “I’ve asked him 
repeatedly and he’s unable to say outright that he has 
seen — the thing. He thinks he did along at the first, 
but I am convinced that he dreamed it, and that, 
considering his feverish state and all, he does not now 


JIMMY AND I MAKE A JOURNEY 327 


separate dream from reality. Certainly he has not 
seen — her during the past fortnight, but if you think 
he bases hope or belief on that youVe only to argue 
with him about it.” 

“I have,” said I. argued with him yesterday — 
that is, I argued at him. It’s — it’s maddening! Here 
he is, free, jree, and he won’t walk out of his prison. 
Of course he will in time. He’ll realise that he’s free 
in time?” I spoke half in question, looking at Car- 
stairs, but Carstairs shook his head. 

“Belief’s a strong thing,” said he. “Men have died 
of having the back of a knife drawn across their throats 
in the dark, and warm water dripped down their bodies 
as if it were their blood. Belief’s a strong thing, and 
an enduring one.” 

“But what’s to be done?” I cried. “For God’s 
sake, what’s to be done? We must do something to 
save Tommy!” 

Sibyl rose from her chair and went slowly down the 
steps of the veranda to the turf below. 

“Come and walk a bit. Bill!” she said. “I want to 
talk to you.” And, when I had joined her and we had 
walked a little way down toward the shore of the Sound, 
out of earshot from those on the veranda, she looked 
up into my face, squeezing my arm with her hands, as 
she walked beside me. 

“Yes, Bill, dear,” she said, “we must do something 
to save Tommy.” 

“I’m open to suggestions,” said I rather bitterly. 
“I’m open to suggestions, but I can suggest nothing 
myself. Sib. I’m at my wits’ end. If you could per- 
suade Tommy’s late friend to come back for a final 
appearance, now, and assure him herself that she 
was leaving for good, that would be worth doing.” I 


328 


TOMMY CARTERET 


laughed, but there was no fun in the laugh, nor any in 
my heart. 

“Yes, Bill!” said Sibyl. “That would be worth 
doing.” She gave my arm another affectionate little 
squeeze “Sometimes, do you know. Bill,” she said, 
“you’re really and truly ingenious.” I looked down 
at her suspiciously and Sibyl laughed in my face. 

“Listen I” she said. “Listen to me, now, and don’t 
interrupt until I give you leave. Don’t laugh either, if 
you can help, because I’m very serious and because I 
want you thoroughly to understand from the beginning. 
You’ve a big part to play in this. Bill.” 

So Sibyl set to work to tell me how we were to save 
Tommy. I do not know whether the amazing scheme 
had come to her suddenly, while Carstairs was talking 
to us on the veranda, or was of slow growth — had 
been long maturing in her mind. In any case, it was 
a thing to make one gasp and stare. I did laugh — 
against orders — at first. The thing was so very mad. 
But the laughter died, as Sibyl went on with her 
plan, and very soon she had me saying eagerly; “Yes, 
yes! Get on with it!” whenever she paused for breath. 
She had my eyes bright and my breath coming fast. 

“By Jove, Sib!” I cried when she had finished 
speaking. “By Jove!” and for quite two or three 
minutes my tongue would form no other words, but 
stammered only “By Jove!” over and over again. 

“It’s desperate!” I managed finally to get out. 
“It’s madly desperate. If it should fail, now! 
Tommy’d never forgive us, you know. Heaven 
knows what might happen if it should fail.” 

Sibyl’s sweet lips drew together a bit and her face 
was white. 

“Our case is desperate,” she said. “We’ve got to 


JIMMY AND I MAKE A JOURNEY 329 


save Tommy. Never mind what it may cost. Never 
mind the risk. I’ll risk it, Bill, and I Imow what I’m 
risking. Will you?” 

I took Sib’s hands and gripped them hard in mine. 

“Oh, why isn’t there another like you. Sib?” said 
I, looking down into her face with a little wry smile. 
“ Why must Tommy be the only king left in the world ? ” 
Sibyl freed one hand and patted my arm. 

“You’re such a dear Bill I” she said, as if that might 
make it up to me. “If it weren’t for Tommy, now, 
Bill,” said she. 

“Sib!” I cried, threatening her with violence, “stop 
it! You’re positively stroking my back down! You’re 
positively saying ‘Pretty puss!’ to me. I won’t have 
it. Oh, yes. I’ll go in for your mad scheme, and I 
expect we’ll all come a tremendous cropper and be 

worse off than before No, no! I don’t, either. Sib, 

dear!” for Sibyl showed signs of tears. “No, I don’t! 
I’m a brute, a snappy, bitey brute! I take it back. 
We sha’n’t come a cropper at all. We shall win. Sib, 
dear, and we shall save Tommy, and it’ll all be your 
work. Yet, I do wish there was one more of you! I 
begrudge Tommy his heaven. I’m jealo.us! Come, 
we must go up and astonish the others! Fancy how 
Carstairs’ eyes will stick out! He’ll think we’re quite 
mad.” 

He did. So did Arabella Crowley, and so did 
Jimmy Rogers, and they all said so promptly and with 
no regard whatever for our feelings. But Sib and I 
stood firm. We explained the thing in detail, and 
allowed their slow minds and meagre understandings, 
step by step, to appreciate its splendour. Then we 
sat back and said: “If not that, what then? What 
do you suggest?” And there we had them. None of 


S30 


TOMMY CARTERET 


them could suggest anything, and little by little, an 
inch at a time, we won them over until there were four 
people on the veranda of Red Rose, all sitting up, 
straight and bright-eyed, all trying to talk at once, and 
all full of enthusiasm over the scheme which was to 
save Tommy Carteret from — ^what, I wonder ? I 
wonder if any one of us had ever dared speculate upon 
what would become of Tommy if we left him to him- 
self and to that fate which walked with him. 

Jimmy Rogers and I went into town that evening. 
We saw Tommy before we left — ^talked with him for 
a few moments, and we told him that we should be 
away for three or four days. I think we said we were 
going to Newport. At any rate, I remember that 
Tommy cursed us freely, with something like his old 
spirit, for going to nice places and having a good time 
when all he was up to was lying in bed and wishing he 
might die. The next day, at 2 :45 in the afternoon, we 
left New York for Chicago, on the very fast train 
which makes the distance in the widely advertised time 
of twenty hours. En route, we pored over maps and 
time-cards, so that when we reached Chicago, some- 
what before ten of the next morning, we knew exactly 
what to do. 

Our train on the Illinois Central, south-bound, left 
almost at once, but it was a slow way-train — its very 
wheels shrieked with triumph when now and then it ac- 
complished a speed-burst of fifteen miles an hour — and 
we had three and a half weary hours of it before we‘ 
clambered out, stiff and begrimed, at a queer little, red- 
frame station, behind which unkempt streets, and more 
unkempt houses of one or two stories, straggled aim- 
lessly away. 

Before the station a sort of common stretched — we 


JIMMY AND I MAKE A JOURNEY 331 


knew it was a common, because a flag-staff stood in 
its centre — and on the opposite side of this space, shel- 
tered by dusty trees, an unpainted edifice bore the sign: 

“Post-Office and General Store” 

“That’s Winston’s!” said Jimmy Rogers. “D’you 
suppose we might get a wash-up there ?” 

Winston — I knew him at once from Tommy’s descrip- 
tion — rose from his seat with the city fathers, as we 
approached, and obligingly removed a mouthful of 
tobacco before greeting us. When we told him that we 
were there on business of Carter’s — Carter, late of Half- 
Breed Hill — the post-office, store, village, and Win- 
ston’s life were ours. It would seem that Tommy had 
found a place in certain hearts here. 

Winston gave us the wash-up for which Jimmy 
Rogers’ soul cried out, also something out of a stone 
jug which we both praised. I would have died rather 
than repeat the dose. He asked us numberless ques- 
tions about Tommy and Tommy’s fortunes and present 
whereabouts, and, in the end, set us on our way, with 
horse and two-wheeled cart, when we said that we must 
see the man Jared. 

“It’s shorely a plumb cur’ous thing,” he said as we 
were starting, “you two gen’lemen a-comin’ hyuh to 
see Jared, jest now. Jared married himse’f las’ week. 
He married Mrs. Barrows, as was — Rose Barrows, ole 
Dave Canfield’s gal. She was a widow woman an’ the 

sister of ” He hesitated a bit awkwardly, “the 

sister of that there Marianner Canfield ’at Mr. Carter 
was a-goin’ to marry.” 

“Very curious,” we agreed, and, as we drove out 
along the white dusty road, “What luck! What golden 


332 


TOMMY CARTERET 


luck!’^ For this marriage removed one of the greatest 
obstacles we had to face. 

We had no difficulty in finding our way over the nine 
miles to Half-Breed Hill. Winston had told us of the 
few turnings we had to take, and the way was plain. 
Once, I remember — it was just before we entered a 
stretch of oakwood — ^we passed a house set back some 
distance from the road, and hedged about with lilac and 
box, a rather superior-looking place for this out-at- 
heels country, and this, we said, must be where poor 
Henry Canardon lived so long and drearily, and died 
with such terrible swiftness. 

A tall, lank young man, with reddish hair and good, 
merry, twinkly eyes, raised himself from the depths of 
a steamer chair as we drove up beside the cabin — a 
steamer chair here in Egypt-land! It was as if I had 
known him for years. Tommy’s word-painting was 
good. 

“You’re Jared I” said I, and the tall young man’s 
eyes opened wide. Then a flush came up over his 
tanned face and he reached for my hand. 

“You-all has come from — him!** he said. “Git 
down! Git down out o’ that! Gawd-a-mighty ! ” He 
lifted up his voice to call, and a woman came to 
the door of the cabin, a woman at whom I looked 
with some eagerness, for now I was to see the 
living likeness of what followed and haunted poor 
Tommy. 

Yes, she had been handsome. No doubt of that. 
She was handsome even now in a florid fashion — a big, 
coarse fashion. There was the gipsyish look I had 
expected, the red mouth and dark eyes and mass of 
black hair, but this woman was not one to jeer and curse 
and torment. She was one to smooth and render faith- 


JIMMY AND I MAKE A JOURNEY 333 


ful, dog-like service. Just the difference, as Tommy 
had outlined it to me I 

She went a bit pale, I remember, when we told her 
who we were — friends of to, and something rather 
puzzling came into her eyes. Long afterward I under- 
stood, but not just then. 

We talked, all four together, for a few moments, 
Jared full of questionings and exclamation, the woman 
silent — ^wondering, I fancy. Then, after a bit, I left 
Jimmy Rogers to explain our errand to the master of 
Half-Breed Hill, and I drew the woman aside. We sat 
down on a certain bench which stood in the shade of the 
cabin, to the north, and I told her as fully as I might, 
without wasting time, all the story — all that had hap- 
pened to Tommy since that night, a year ago, and, for 
the most part, she listened in silence, watching my face 
with her great shadowy eyes. Only, when I came to 
the matter of the dead girLs returning to haunt the man 
whom she had been about to marry, the woman stirred, 
and an odd, bitter hatred wakened in her face. 

‘‘Yes!” she said under her breath, “yes, she’d do 
that, Marianner would ! That there’s like Marianner I ” 
and so fell silent again, watching my face. She showed 
no astonishment at all over the extraordinary improb- 
ability of the tale. She did not laugh or exclaim or 
intimate that I was weaving fiction, only listened very 
gravely, nodding from time to time. 

I told her of Tommy’s late accident and his cure (or 
what we held to be his cure), and of his refusal to believe 
that the thing had left him — of his certainty that she 
was only waiting to hurt him the more, only playing 
at cat-and-mouse with him, and finally I told her of our 
daring scheme, and what we wished of her by way of 
carrying it out. After this she sat without speaking, 


334 


TOMMY CARTERET 


for a time, and I know my heart beat fast. So much 
depended upon her whim! Then she asked a few keen, 
shrewd questions about his condition, the possibilities 
of the plan, our arrangements, and the like, and at last 
she nodded her head. 

‘T’ll do it,” she said. ‘T^l do all I can. Maybe 
we-all can save him.” I was close upon shouting aloud 
for joy. 

“By Jove!” said I, “you’re a good woman. By 
Jove, I’m — I’m proud to know you ! I — J ared’s a lucky 
man.” That embarrassed her a bit, I fancy. It may 
be that she thought I was poking fun at her, or some- 
thing of the sort, for she flushed and looked uncom- 
fortable for a moment. Presently she fell back again 
into her silence, staring across at me or out over the 
tree-tops. 

Then, after a long time: 

“Do you-all think he — ^he loved — Marianner?” she 
asked. She spoke in a deprecating, apologetic tone, 
embarrassed rather, but I could see that she was very 
serious. I did not know what she wanted me to say. 
I risked the truth so far as I partly knew, partly 
guessed it. 

“No,” said I, “I don’t think he was.” And then I 
knew, for she said, looking up at me in an odd, 
grateful fashion: 

“I’m glad.” 

“I think,” said I, “that it was something of this sort. 
He — ^well, he expected always to live here. He thought 
he would never be able to return home. That, in itself, 
changes a man. He — ^begins to think differently about 
a heap of things. Then he was lonely — almost crazed 
with loneliness, I fancy ” 

“Yes,” she said, nodding again. “Yes, I reckon he 
was right lonely.” 


JIMMY AND I MAKE A JOURNEY 335 


“And your sister was handsome,” I went on, “and 
circumstances threw them together. Circumstances 
made it almost necessary for him to marry her, and — 
well, there you have it! Love her? No, I don't think 
he loved her — not as real love goes.” 

“I'm glad,” said Mariana's sister again. “I wasn't 
just sure. She wasn't nohow good enough fo' him. 
She wasn't his — kind.” Of course, I couldn't say 
anything to that — not to the dead girl's own sister, but 
she seemed not to expect any answer. It was as if she 
were talking quite to herselh 

After this she was once more silent, and I sat watching 
her, for she began to interest me. But in a few moments 
Jared and Jimmy Rogers came up, and we all discussed 
the journey which was before us. On the subject of 
Tommy's strange malady Jared seemed bewildered 
and a little frightened. He did not take the thing with 
the serious calm of his wife, but after his different 
nature, with many questions and more words and a 
great deal of amazed awe. It was quite beyond his 
mind's grasp. 

In the matter of fighting for Tommy's cause, it was 
different. He was willing — nay, anxious, to start for 
the battle-field at once, without his coat. 

“What, me holp fo' to put him squar' agin?” he 
said. “Why — ^why. Hell! I should think likely! 
Why — ain't he give me this hyuh house ari' farm? 
Ain't he put such a almighty heap o' money in the baink 
fo' me 'at I don' never have to lif a han' to work ef I 
don' feel that-a-way ? Ain't he done all that an' mo' ? 
Holp him! Why, they ain't anything we wouldn' 
do, me an' Rose!” 

He pressed us to stay for dinner, for the night, but we 
declined, and, after making arrangements tP meet the 


336 


TOMMY CARTERET 


two on the next morning, in time for the north-bound 
train, we drove slowly back, through the sunset, over 
the steep hills and through the flat woodlands which 
Tommy had known so well, and reached the village 
just as night was gathering. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


Mariana Says Good-bye 

There has been a great deal written — well or ill — 
upon the first impressions of primitive and simple folk 
when brought into surroundings so new to them that 
they can never have existed even as imaginative pic- 
tures, and the subject is perennially an interesting one, 
but I have neither time nor space — nor, for that matter, 
inclination to deal with the half-frightened wonderment 
of the two people whom Jimmy Rogers and I brought 
from their hill farm to Chicago and thence to New York 
and finally to Baychester by the Sound. You must 
imagine it for yourselves. Its telling would but retard 
my story. This much only I give you. Neither of the 
two had ever before been on a railway train. 

In the morning of the fourth day after our leaving 
Baychester, we were back there again. We went out 
from town in a big touring motor-car — it is easier so 
than by train — and this was, I think, the severest strain 
to which we were obliged to put our guests from Half- 
Breed Hill. We went directly to Red Rose, where we 
found Arabella Crowley, Sibyl, and Dr. Carstairs 
waiting. We had warned them, by wire, of our arrival. 

Sibyl at once took charge of the woman. Rose. 
There was, by the way, an interesting moment when the 
two first met, for now Sibyl knew, at last, what Tommy’s 
incubus was like; and as for Jared’s wife, she guessed, 
in an instant— I saw that — who Sibyl was and what 
337 


338 


TOMMY CARTERET 


Sibyl meant to Tommy. Aye, an interesting moment, 
that I 

Jimmy Rogers set himself to making Jared com- 
fortable, and planning amusement for him, since the 
man was to have no active part in the scheme which was 
forward. Thus Arabella was left with me. Carstairs, 
after a moment^s greeting, had gone back to his patient. 

‘‘I am glad to see you back, William,” said old Ara- 
bella. ‘‘You’ve had a long, hard journey.” 

“I’d take a longer and harder in the same cause,” 
said I. Arabella patted my hand. 

“I’m glad it wasn’t necessary,” she said. “How 
about the woman yonder?” 

“She’s a good woman!” said I warmly. “She’s an 
extremely good woman. I take it her sister’s traits 
and her own differed somewhat.” 

“She has good eyes,” said old Arabella, “good, hon- 
est, faithful eyes. Have you told her everything?” 

“Oh, yes,” said I. “She knows all that’s happened 
and all that’s expected of her. She’s letter-perfect, I 
should think. I coached her up in the train between 
Chicago and New York. Hang that same train!” 

“Ah, now, that is good!” said Mrs. Crowley. “Sibyl 
was hoping you would do that. Sibyl wants to get the 
thing over with to-day.” 

“To-day!” I cried in alarm. “Oh, I say, that’s too 
— ^too sudden, you know. We’re not prepared. We’re 
not — oh, I say, I begin to feel — shivers, you know!” 

“That is just the point, William!” nodded old Ara- 
bella. “If we put the thing off until to-morrow, we 
shall all have shivers. If we put it off until another day 
still, we shall never have the courage to do it at all. 
No ! Better at once if the woman knows her part thor- 
oughly. It all hangs upon her, anyhow.” 


MARIANA SAYS GOOD-BYE 


339 


“Oh,” said I reluctantly, “she is fit for it now, I sup- 
pose. Hang it, I — I wonder if it’s not too risky — the 
whole thing, you know! I ” 

“No, it isn’t!” said Sibyl behind me. “Stop craw- 
fishing, Bill dear! You’ve done your work splendidly. 
It’s — in other hands now, and we’re going about it at 
once before we lose our courage.” She was pale her- 
self, and her mouth was drawn, to hide its trembling, 
but there was no lack of courage about her — Sib 
was plucky! — only a realisation of the tremendous 
seriousness of the thing we were attempting. 

“Do you want to be with Tommy when— when it’s 
— done?” she asked. “Perhaps you’d better, you and 
Jimmy and the doctor.” 

“And you. Sib?” said I. 

“Oh, no, no! Oh, no!” said Sibyl, going whiter. 
“No, Bill, dear. I — couldn’t quite. There’s no need, 
you know. Oh, no! I couldn’t do that.” 

Jimmy Rogers came out upon the veranda just then. 

“It’s to be now, Jimmy,” said I; “now, at once!” 

“Good God!” said Jimmy Rogers. “Not really?” 
And I’ll swear he went pale. “Here!” said he. “I 
say, I — I want a drink first. I’ve got to have a drink!” 

“I’ll just — er — come with you,” said I. 

We had the two drinks and started down toward the 
Hall. I cannot truthfully say that we hastened. Sibyl, 
who was turning into the house again, called out a last 
word to me. 

“The door into the next room. Bill! The usual 
door!” 

“Right, O!” said I, and shivered. Jimmy Rogers 
looked at me disgustedly. 

“You looked washed out!” he growled. “Not feel- 
ing fit?” 


340 


TOMMY CARTERET 


'‘You go hang!” said I. "Or, rather, go look into a 
mirror, if you think you’re a picture of health and hap- 
piness yourself. And now, for the love of Heaven I” 
I said, as we mounted the stairs to Tommy’s door, " take 
hold of yourself and keep hold. Don’t let Tommy sus- 
pect that anything unusual is on!” Jimmy cursed at 
me softly under his breath, and we opened the door. 

Carstairs was sitting beside the bed, smoking a 
cigarette, and Tommy half sat, half lay, propped up 
with pillows. He greeted us with some enthusiasm — 
poor chap; he was deadly tired of bed, I know. 

"How’s Newport?” he demanded. 

"Same hole!” said I. "Same ant-hill, rather. Too 
many people. Too much to do. Give me peace and 
quiet!” And a great deal more of that sort of thing. 
It was hard work, this talking against time. I think 
we did it rather well, Jimmy and I — Carstairs had made 
some excuse and gone out of the room soon after we 
entered. I think we did it as well as it could have been 
done, and I, for one, am proud. But the heart in me 
was going by leaps and halts, and my ears strained, 
until I thought they must burst, for a sound in the 
room beyond. 

It came after about half an hour, I should think, and 
I know the blood rushed to my face. I know also that 
it mounted to Jimmy Rogers’ face, for I saw it. Tommy 
went on talking. His less attentive ears heard nothing. 
Then it came again — a sound of some one moving 
quietly about, a sound of skirts dragging, of a chair 
moved. 

Quite suddenly I saw Tommy’s body stiffen and 
remain, for an instant, rigid. 

" Is — Carstairs out there in the — hall ? ” he asked in 
an odd voice, 


MARIANA SAYS GOOD-BYE 


341 


‘‘Carstairs?” said I. ‘‘Oh, no, I think not. We’d 
hear him moving about if he were. No, I think he was 
going over to Red Rose. Didn’t he say so ? ” 

“Ye-esI” said Tommy Carteret. “Yes, I — ^believe 
he did.” 

The sound came again from the room beyond — 
draperies dragging across the carpet, that unmistakable 
whispering sound. Also there was a barely audible 
murmur of song, as if a woman hummed below her 
breath. 

Tommy sank back upon his pillows with a little sigh. 
I saw the colour begin to fade out of his cheeks and neck 
very slowly. 

“Tired, eh, what?” I asked cheerfully. “Chuck us 
out if we tire you, you know! ” He did not even answer 
me — I doubt if he heard, but that colour faded and 
faded from his thin cheeks, leaving a grey pallor. It 
almost frightened me. It was like a man dying. 

I scowled across at Jimmy Rogers and Jimmy sat up 
and began to tell some silly tale or other, but I doubt if 
Tommy Carteret heard. There were shadows about 
his eyes, and his lips were moving. I pulled out a 
cigarette and lighted it — one eye on that door beyond. 
To my dying day I shall take pride in the fact that the 
match was sure and steady — did not betray me. 

Very slowly, without noise or haste, the door of the 
next room began to open, and, as I saw it move, a chat- 
tering fear came upon me — something like the awful 
horror of that first dinner in the Hall, but I took firm 
hold on myself and drove it down. I must not be the 
one to fail Tommy at this moment. Very slowly the 
door was pushed inward and a woman stood there, a 
handsome, gipsyish, florid woman, with her black hair 
in two braids which hung down before her shoulders 


342 


TOMMY CAETERET 


almost to her knees; a bold-eyed woman in a soiled, 
lacy, tea-gown sort of garment, rumpled and unkempt; 
a red-lipped woman with a wheedling smile; a woman 
who leered allurement. 

Tommy Carteret, lying back gaunt and still among 
his raised pillows, looked at her, and his hollow eyes 
burned sombrely. When at last he spoke, I did not 
know the voice. It was a strange voice. It had 
dropped half an octave, I should think, in pitch. 

‘‘You have come back to me — Mariana?” said he 
in that deep, slow voice, and his hollow eyes burned at 
her. I scowled again at Jimmy Rogers and we both 
cried out upon Tommy. 

“ Good God, man I ” said I. “ Do you mean to say — 
Tommy, Tommy, has it — come back ? Are you — 
seeing her again ? Why — Carstairs — my God,Tommy ! ” 
Those burning eyes of his turned to me for an instant 
and Tommy’s lips twisted into a wry smile. 

“Don’t — ^take it like — that. Bill I” said he. “It 
doesn’t — matter, you know. It isn’t as if it were any- 
thing new. I was — certain that she’d come, and she 
has come. We — go through life together, she and I,” 

Jimmy Rogers was babbling something on the other 
side of the bed, but Tommy turned his eyes to the 
woman in the doorway. 

“You have come back to me^Mariana?” he said 
again, and the woman scowled, twisting her bands 
together before her. 

“ I reckon I’ll come if I — ^want to I ” she said. “Who’s 
a-goin’ to stop me f’om cornin’ ?” 

“Not II” said Tommy Carteret in his still voice, 
“Not I, Mariana, nor any power on this earth, I think 
— God, possibly, when he has done with me.” The 
woman gave a little sneering laugh. She had moved 


MARIANA SAYS GOOD-BYE 


343 


a few steps into the darkened room, but she did not 
approach the bed. 

“You don’t seem right anxious for to see me,” she 
said — “after all this time, too!” 

Tommy’s eyes closed for an instant, and Jimmy 
Rogers leaned forward and touched his knee. 

“Is she — still here. Tommy?” he whispered. “Is 
she still in the room?” Tommy nodded, opening his 
eyes, and he gazed gravely across the dim room to the 
woman who stood there frowning at him. 

“Did you expect me to welcome you?” he asked. 
Then the woman cursed him, wickedly, until I could 
with difficulty hide my amazement, but Tommy seemed 
to find nothing strange in it — only lay there staring, 
patiently, sombrely. 

“ An’ so I’m through!” said the spirit of Mariana 

Canfield, venomously. “Hyuh I come to you, takin’ a 
heap o’ trouble about it, an’ you treat me like I was the 
dirt unduh yo’ feet. I’m through with you. A Hell 
of a fine time you’ve gave me whilst I was tryin’ to treat 
you decent, haven’t you, eh? Jus’ like the dirt unduh 
yo’ feet!” 

Tommy Carteret began to tremble very violently, 
and he put out a groping hand and caught my shoulder 
and pulled himself up to a sitting posture by it. 

“What do you — ^mean?” he said in a shaking whis- 
per. “What are you — saying? 'Through with me?’ 
Do you mean that you are — agoing away — agoing to — 
leave me — forever?” 

The woman laughed again sneeringly. 

“I reckon it’ll plumb break yo’ heart, won’t it?” 
she said. “Yes, I am a-goin’ to leave you. I got some- 
thin’ better to do ’an hangin’ aroun’ a man as hates me. 
Whyfore do you-all hate me so ? ” she burst out in a little 


344 


TOMMY CARTERET 


flare of rage. ‘‘You — ^you wanted to marry me once I 
You said you — ^loved me! Didn’t you ? Didn’t you ? ” 

“Did I?” said Tommy. He was swaying a bit as 
he sat there, and one hand was over his eyes. I think 
his tongue answered her mechanically. 

“Didn’t you ?” she demanded half-eagerly, and I saw 
her face flush, even in that dim, shaded light. “ Didn’t 
you truly never love me at all?” It almost seemed as 
if she were glad that he had never loved her. I caught 
Jimmy Rogers’ eye across the bed and frowned, for I 
thought the woman was forgetting her role. I need not 
have been alarmed. Tommy was in no state to observe 
lapses. 

“Not at all?” said the woman softly to herself, smil- 
ing. “I’m gla ” She pulled herself up sharply. 

“Well, I’m a-going,” she said in her sneering tone. 
“I reckon you-all can live without me hyuh, an’ as 
fo’ me, I’m sick of you an’ everything about you. I 
ain’t any dawg to be treated like you’ve treated me.” 

She moved toward the door by which she had entered, 
but Tommy Carteret struggled up to his knees on the 
bed and his hands went out toward her. 

“Going?” he cried aloud. “Really — ^truly going? 
Going forever? You’ll never come back? You — 
swear it? I’m to be — free of you — ^forever?” 

The woman glowered at him from the doorway, and 
again she gave her nasty, sneering little laugh. 

“Do you-all think I’ve had sech a fine time all these 
hyuh months ’at I’d want to keep it up ?” she demanded. 
“No, I ain’t cornin’ back. I’m sick of you. I’m sorry 
I ever did come. . . . Come back? You make 

me laugh!” 

Somehow she must have gone through that door into 
the next room and have closed the door behind her, but 


MARIANA SAYS GOOD-BYE 


345 


upon my honour, I saw nothing. Suddenly she was 
not there, and the door stood closed. A bit of an optical 
illusion, due to my excitement, doubtless, but I remem- 
ber that the hair once again stirred at the back of my 
neck, and my forehead felt cold and damp. 

Tommy Carteret knelt upright among the tumbled 
bedclothes, laughing and sobbing — his hands over his 
face, his body swaying back and forth. Jimmy Rogers 
and I called out to him, called him by name, but he did 
not heed. I shook him by the arm, but he laughed and 
sobbed on. Once he cried aloud: 

“ Gone ! My God, gone ! ” and his voice broke. And 
once again, the same thing, breaking into hysteria at 
its end. And still a third time, face hidden in his hands, 
he cried: 

“Gone, gone, gone! My God, gonel” and then, 
quite suddenly, fell flat over upon his face and fainted 
dead away. 

ENVOY 

And here, of course, the story ends, for it was to be, 
you remember, the story of the extraordinary game 
Fate played with Tommy Carteret, and, after that 
August morning at the Hall when Tommy, in his 
darkened room, fell face downward among the tumbled 
bedclothes and fainted dead away, nothing which might 
be extraordinary befel — unless, by chance, you join 
with me in thinking, not jealously, perhaps, but a bit 
wistfully, that a life lived in the light of Sibyl’s eyes is 
heaven-like enough to be termed extraordinary— aye, 
more, more! 

So Tommy’s story ends, with the passing of his 
curse. I wish there might have been less curse in it. 


346 


TOMMY CARTERET 


less gloom and loneliness and tragedy and despair, but 
I didn’t make the story; I only report it. Address your 
complaints elsewhere. Could I have had the ordering 
of the thing, it should have been gayer far. 

Still, though, as I have already said, twice, the tale is 
done, indulge me — ^who so love to see pictures — for a 
little moment still. Grant me one more picture — a 
final tableau, as it were, before the curtain is down to 
remain. 

It is Tommy again whom I see — I shall not weary 
you with the rest of us who have been, at the best, but 
grey shades attendant upon him — ^Tommy again, but 
this time not alone, quite. There is a ship, a liner, 
Mediterranean-bound, a ship slipping smoothly and 
easily through a warm summer sea where there is, at 
the moment, neither wave nor wind. She has been 
coasting past islands in the early morning, and 
now, in the warm dusk with night coming down, she 
skirts a last island, dim and towering, black green 
against a torn, sunset sky. There are evening mists 
about the mountain island — mists which float and 
wreathe and twist like cigar smoke, ever-changing mists. 
Out of the gloom, low along the shore, lights gleam, 
yellow points of light, hospitable and cosy-looking, 
and 

“See, Tommy! See!” says some one who leans over 
the rail by Tommy’s side, warm against Tommy’s shoul- 
der, “see! at the very top of the mountain! One little 
pin-point of light! Somebody is on the summit. Prob- 
ably somebody lives there. Oh, Tommy, I want to be 
the somebody!” 

“Alone?” says Tommy Carteret. And Sib gives a 
little soft laugh in the dark and presses closer against his 
shoulder. 


MARIANA SAYS GOOD-BYE 


347 


‘‘ One of two somebodies, Tommy,” she says. ‘‘ Dare 
you to jump overboard with me and swim to Pico I” 

“Come on!” says Tommy. “Come on. Sib!” But 
at that Sibyl gives another soft little, tender little laugh 
in the dark. 

“No need!” she says comfortably, leaning against 
him. “Oh, no need! We — carry our Pico with us.” 

And as if in mighty disdain of such heresy, those lift- 
ing, wreathing mists wrap Pico’s mountain in jealous 
arms and sweep it astern until night hides it altogether, 
and there is left only the torn, western sky, dimming and 
paling, and the sweet, soft night and the sea — ^yes, one 
great star, the evening star, high in the west. 

“And that’s ours, too,” says the grasping Sibyl. 
“Look, Tommy, it’s smiling at us!” 

Tommy prefers to look elsewhere. 

“Oh, Sib, Sib!” he cries, down through the dark to 
her. “Oh, Sib, you’re so very beautiful!” And Sibyl 
gives a little catching laugh. 

“Now you are a dear Tommy!” says she. 


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